Betrayal of a Rose
by JayRayGee
Summary: Ruby thought she had a great life at Beacon. But when some of her so called friends turn on her, she had no choice but to retaliate.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

**A/N: This is my first attempt at writing any type of fanfiction. I have been told by many of my English and writing teachers in both high school and college that I am a really great creative writer. So I thought I would transfer that ability into writing fanfictions. So** **let's go over how this will play out:**

 **First off, this is a dark RWBY fanfic with multiple chapters and maybe a sequel or two, I just haven't decided that far out yet. Secondly, I will post the exact date of when the chapter is posted so you know about how long you should expect between chapters. Finally, I'll try to at least post one fanfic a month, but there might some months I will post two or none at all, so just a heads up.**

 **One more thing, my fanfics sometimes won't follow the RWBY lore and fact 100% of the time. Sometimes I will make stuff up to add flare or to make some more sense. If I do, don't call me out on it, just go along. If I get something wrong or forgot to add something in, tell me in the comments.**

 **Starting Writing: December 16, 2016 at 12:30 A.M.**

 **I do not own any of RWBY or its content. All right go to Rooster Teeth and its companies.**

 **Let's begin:**

Chapter 1: Prologue

Remnant is an unforgiving place. A world filled with creatures called Grimm that kills humans and Faunus alike, not because they need to, but because they want to. They hunt by looking for the light in people, their souls. Their souls could physically manifest into something called an Aura, a form of innate energy that bestows its user with certain abilities and powers. Unique expressions of these abilities which are specific to individuals are known as semblances. Grimm do not have souls, therefore, to other Grimm, they are dark. They see each other as darkness and people as a light that they need to extinguish. The only hope for the human race was to fight back, but not everyone could. Some were too scared or too weak. But those that could needed help. That's were Dust comes in. Dust was vital to helping mankind overpower the Grimm and start building civilizations. And those that could harness the power of Dust were treated as heroes, a class above the rest. These people were called Huntsmen and Huntresses. To them, it didn't matter if you were a man, women, cat, or dog. If you could hold your own and fight, you were equal.

Eventually as time passed on, Kingdoms began to form. Some had it easy. Others had it rough. But as the years passed and times changed, the kingdoms became stronger and more powerful. They had armies and leaders wanting only the greater good of their people. However, men don't always agree with each other and with that came skirmishes. Skirmishes turned into battles. Battles turned into war. The biggest war was called the Great War. The war was fought over countless reasons but the main one was individualism. After many years of fighting, the four kingdoms met on the small island of Vytal to discuss the end of the war. Now, in honor of the end of the war, a tournament takes place that pits the four kingdoms major schools for training future huntsmen and huntresses against each other called the Vytal Festival. And that's where our story begins

Ruby Rose, a 15 year old, high energy, future huntress in-training has been accepting into Beacon, Vale's academy for training future huntsmen and huntresses. However, Ruby was special because she was accepting two years early due to her amazing fighting skill for her age, with a little help from her weapon of choice: A six-foot tall high caliber, sniper-scythe called Crescent Rose. Now with Ruby begin only 5 foot 2 inches, this was impressive, and caught the eye of Ozpin, the Headmaster of Beacon, who granted Ruby access into Beacon. Once there, Ruby was placed on a team as team leader with Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and her older sister, Yang Xiao Long. Together, they formed Team RWBY. Since then, Ruby and her team have fought both Grimm and bad guys alike. The two main enemies of Ruby are Roman Torchwick, a career criminal and The White Fang, a terrorist group made up of entirely Faunus' that was been working with Roman for the past few months.

However, Ruby has also fought with some internal battles as well. Like coming to term that Blake is a cat Faunus that used to work with the White Fang but has since quit the organization to fight for the greater good. And the fact that her best friend, Weiss, at first didn't like her as team leader and thought Ozpin made a mistake. But since then she has proven to be a great fighter and Weiss has except that.

Now the Vytal festival is only a few weeks away and team RWBY has learned of a mission to go out Grimm hunting decided to take as it was also a great time to train some more. Joined along team JNPR, made up of friends Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, and Ren Lie. Together, the eight decided to go into the Emerald Forest, a place teaming with Grimm, eager and ready to kill anyone who got in their way. However, it is not the Grimm Ruby has to worry about, Oh no; Ruby has something way bigger to worry about: Her so-called friends.

You see, not everyone was too excited when they learned a 15 year old was being accepted into Beacon Academy. And of those people that were unpleased with Ozpin's decision were Pyrrha Nikos and Blake Belladonna. Both shared the same opinion; that Ozpin had made a mistake. You see, they both tried extremely hard to get into this prestigious academy. And to learn that a 15 year old was accepting just because she stopped one criminal from stealing from a dust shop was infuriating to them. So over the last few months, they have been secretly meeting up to discuss how to "get rid" of Ruby Rose. They slipped away at night or used excuse like "I need some fresh air" during heating times in the dorm rooms or "I'm going to the library" so they wouldn't arouse suspicion from their fellow teammates. At first, the plan was to get Ruby expelled, but as time went on, the soon realized the only way was to kill Ruby. So they hatched a plan. To kill Ruby, they first needed to get her away from her overly protective sister, Yang, who would kill anyone trying to harm her baby sister Ruby. Next, they needed an alibi once the deed was done so they wouldn't be accused of anything. Finally, they needed a place. Killing her on school grounds would be way to risky so they needed to find a way to get her away from prying eyes to kill her silently. And once they heard that both teams were headed to the Emerald Forest to train, they both knew that this was the time to strike.

Once on the airship, Pyrrha and Blake slipped away to rehearse the plan one more time

"Okay, once we land, we'll separate into four teams of two. You go with Yang to distract her. I'll go with Ruby. She'll be eager to learn from a celebrity like me." Pyrrha explained

"Right. Once together, I'll make a commotion to hopefully get some Grimm to come attack us. This will distract Yang for about 5-10 minutes." Blake responded

"Correct. Once you begin fighting, Ruby will probably her the sounds of Yang's shotgun gauntlets and will want to help. Once her back is turned, I'll stab her. Right though the heart. It will be quick and as painless as possible." Pyrrha continued

"Yang will be so caught up in fighting Grimm that she won't ever realize that her sister has been killed." Blake said.

"That's the plan, got it?" Pyrrha asked

"Yeah. Oh, and one more thing:" Blake said to Pyrrha "Make sure to injure yourself. It will make it look more believable. If you say that Ruby was attacked but you are unharmed, you'll arouse some suspicions. Cut your face or create a big slash on your arm. That way no one will question it."

"Great idea." Pyrrha said.

With the plan rehearsed, the two returned to their fellow friends. They also were talking about the mission ahead.

Blake butted in and said "Once we land, we should split up into teams of two." This was met with some questionable looks. "You see, if we split up, we can learn how each other fights more in depth than if we were in teams of four." Blake reassured them

Upon hearing this, everyone agreed with Blake, siding that when in teams of four, learning one's fighting style can be difficult since you are trying to focus on fighting and three people's fighting styles. But when there is only two, then you only have to focus on one person's fighting styles.

"I want to go with Yang." Ruby blurted out.

"Ruby, you've grown up with Yang, you know how she fights. How about me and you go together?" Pyrrha asked

"Yeah, and I'll go with Yang."Blake said

"Alright." Responded, reluctantly.

"I want Weiss on my team." Jaune said sensually.

"I'd rather go with crazy over her." Weiss pointed to Nora.

"How about you and I go together, Jaune. I already know all of Nora's moves, so it would be unnecessary to go with her." Ren responded.

"But…but…fine" Jaune said.

With the four teams made and with only five minutes to landing, the teams joined up and began discussing what to expect from this mission. As Pyrrha talked to Ruby about what to expect, Ruby had no idea of the plan that was unfolding. And with her eagerly waiting to kill Grimm and train with Pyrrha, she had no idea that this would be the last mission she ever went on and the last time she would be happy ever again.

 **Afterword**

 **So there you have it, the first chapter of the Betrayal of the Rose. I think I did pretty well. As you can probably tell, there will be multiple chapters. And I would like clear one thing up before anyone asks. No, I do not hate Pyrrha and Blake. They just seemed like suitable candidates for this. They both are loners and don't really have any type of real connection to Ruby. Also I couldn't see Nora or Ren doing this.**

 **So what do you think? Remember, this is my first attempt at creative writing so if it's sub-par to you, tell me how I can fix it to make it better.**

 **Below here are some little tid-bits of info about the chapter**

 **Finished Writing: December 16, 2016 2:10 A.M.**

 **Pages: 4**

 **Words: 1.8K**


	2. Chapter 2: Betrayal

**A/N: Remember when I said that these would be coming out once month? That begins after this chapter. You see, I had planned for this to be part of chapter one, but decided against it so that the story could be longer and have more chapters. Also to keep you reader coming back.**

 **So as of right now, I have this chapter, the final chapter, and basic info for everything in-between (basically, I have the plot but not any details in between now and the end).**

 **Started Writing: December 16, 2016 10:57 A.M.**

Chapter 2: Betrayal

The airships were beginning to land. Both Team RWBY and Team JNPR were excited about the mission that was about to begin. As the airships landed at the temple were the teams were originally formed and the bay doors opened, the groups of two got together and discussed where they should go. Weiss and Nora decided to head south, back towards the direction of the school. Ren and Jaune decided to say near the temple to look around (they mainly did this because Jaune was a bit nervous and airsick). Blake and Yang decided to head east which left Pyrrha and Ruby to head west.

With the teams decided and where they were headed, the airships finally landed and let off its passengers. Once safely on the ground, Ruby went over the plans one more time.

"Okay, so it's 10:30 A.M. right now. The mission is to clear out large herd of Boarbatusks that has been spotted in this area. We should meet back here at 6 P.M. That's when the airships come back. If you are not here at 6, you will be left behind. You'll have to spend the night here." Ruby said this but knew that no one would be left behind on her watch. If only she knew that wouldn't be her decision

Soon the teams split up and went on their separate ways. After about an hour of walking Ruby finally spoke up.

"Isn't this a bit far from everyone else?" Ruby asked Pyrrha.

"It is, but you're with me, remember? One of the best fighters in Remnant." Pyrrha responded, smiling at the smaller girl. This put Ruby at ease as they continued walking deeper into the forest.

At the same time, Yang and Blake had stopped for a minute. They too had been walking for almost an hour. They hadn't seen any Grimm yet, but the day was still young.

"I'm worried." Yang said suddenly

Blake looked up at her. "Why is that?"

"Well, we are just so far from everyone else, including Ruby. What if she gets hurt or worst…"Yang said.

"Don't worry Yang. Ruby can handle herself. After all, she did get accepted into this school two years early for her fighting skill." Blake said with a pain. She hated reminding herself of that fact.

"You're right Blake. I'm guess I'm just a bit overprotective."

It was now around 5. All the groups had encountered some Grimm including some of the Bora Tusks. But nothing too hard. Pyrrha and getting anxious. Ruby hadn't once heard Yang fighting and soon they would have to turn back. Pyrrha began to think up of a way to distract Ruby long enough to stab her with her weapon, Miló and Akoúo. A javelin that could transform into a rifle. She wondered if she should stab in while facing her. But if she did, Ruby could use her speed semblance and get away before Pyrrha even had a chance to recover. Meanwhile, Yang and Blake were headed back to the meeting point when they happened across Ren and Jaune.

"Hey, Jaune-y boy, what are you doing here?" Yang said happily. 

"Well, I and Ren decided to just see if we could find any harder challenges. The Grimm we faced were too easy." Jaune replied proudly.

"We've been at the temple since we landed. Jaune was airsick for roughly 2 hours and then proceeded to take a nap. We just left the temple about an hour ago." Ren replied in his usual emotionless voice.

Yang couldn't help but laugh. Jaune just glared at Ren. Ren just said "Honesty is the best answer."

After recovering, Yang told Jaune that she and Blake were headed back to the meeting point. Just then, a low growl could be heard from the tree line.

"What was that?" Jaune said, shushing the rest of them.

"What? I didn't hear anything." Yang said, puzzled

"Just be quiet. I think I heard a Grimm" Jaune quietly yelled at Yang.

Just then, a rumble could be felt. All four of them pulled out their weapons. Then, with a huge crash, a huge Beowulf came crashing through the trees. But right as Jaune was about the attack it, it just fell over, dead. And when it fell, it revealed two friendly faces, one elated and one terrified.

"Awww, I broke another one."

The four relaxed once they realized that it was just Nora and Weiss.

"Let's. Never. Do. That. Again." Weiss said, visibly shaken up.

"Why not, that was so much fun!" Nora said happily "Hi Ren"

"Hello Nora. What have you and Weiss been up to?" Ren asked

"Well first we saw a Beowulf and her cubs and I wanted one but Weiss said that was a bad idea and…"Nora rambling faded from Jaune's ears. He had gotten used to the incoherent rambling of the little time bomb and soon learned to tune it out. He did feel bad for Ren at times having to listen to all of this.

As Nora finished up their story, the six regrouped to figure out how far they were from the temple. The realized that they were no more than a 30 minute walk from the temple and if they hurried, they could beat Pyrrha and Ruby. But as they set off, a loud crash came from the trees to the left. Jaune looked over only to be blindsided by a large rotating mass that sent him flying into a tree. The remaining five turned their heads to see what had attacked them. Three enormously large Bora Tusks, each over eight feet high. These were some of the largest Boarbatusks any of them had ever seen. They prepared for a fight and boy would they get one. Jaune, who was stunned after hitting a tree, looked up to see what awaited him. As soon as her recovered he ran over to his team.

"What should we do?" Jaune yelled at everyone

"I don't know you're the team leader." Yang yelled back.

"Well without Ruby or Pyrrha, this will sure be a tough fight, since they are the best two fighters we have." Jaune said. This hurt Blake a little on the inside to hear that Ruby was one of the best fighters in the group. Quietly she said to herself _Pyrrha, if you have not killed Ruby, do it now._ Just then, Yang lunged at the Boarbatusks, striking the one in the middle. The battle had begun

Meanwhile, Ruby and Pyrrha were walking back towards the temple. Ruby was complaining about how this was a waste of a day and that she didn't see one large Boarbatusks. Pyrrha meanwhile was behind her, pondering whether she should kill her now. She decided it was now or never. The only issue was that the way Ruby carried her Crescent Rose; it blocked an easy path to her heart. She had to somehow get around that. But as she was figuring out how to do that, she heard the sound: Yang gauntlets. It was soon followed up my Blake's Gambol Shroud. Ruby heard it too.

"Pyrrha, did you hear that?" Ruby said. "It sounds like Yang and Blake are fighting something. I want to see this." Ruby took off running leaving Pyrrha behind.

"Ruby, wait!" Pyrrha called, chasing after her. Pyrrha soon caught up with Ruby who was staring in amazement. There, off in the distance she could see the rest of her friends fighting three of the largest Boarbatusks both of them had ever seen. Ruby pulled out her Crescent Rose.

"I'm going to snipe one of those Grimm." Ruby said as she looked through her sniper scope attached to her weapon. She crouched down to better control her aim. Pyrrha realized it was now or never. Ruby had her back turned to her and was concentrating on the Grimm.

"Hey Pyrrha, where is the best place to hi….." Ruby suddenly felt something cold hit her. A screaming pain coming from her back. She looked down and what she saw scared her beyond anything she had ever seen or encountered. Sticking out of her was a blade, but not just any blade. It was the tip of a weapon, a familiar weapon. As she tried to figure out whose weapon it was, it was pulled out. This caused a second, ever more violent pain. Blood soon began pouring out of her at a slow but constant rate. She slumped over weapon still in hand. The world around her soon began to go black. She curled up into a ball to try and stop the pain, but it was too much. Just then she saw something walk in front of her, she looked up and saw Pyrrha, holding her weapon, covered in blood. Ruby's blood.

"WH…W…Why?" Ruby eventually sputtered out, blood coming from her mouth now.

"I'm sorry." Pyrrha said, tear beginning to form in her eyes. "But you, Ruby Rose, were a mistake. You should have never been allowed to come here. Ozpin made a mistake. And I'm here to fix that mistake." Pyrrha then took Ruby's weapon, cut her face and arms on it, causing blood to run out. She then took Ruby's weapon and using her polarity, picked it up and slammed it against a rock, smashing it. Ruby watched in pain as not only her weapon she cared so much for was destroyed, but her life was slipping from reach. She looked over at where Yang and the rest of them were still fighting the Boarbatusks. None of them had noticed. None of them had realized that only 300 meters away, Pyrrha had stabbed Ruby and left her to die.

Meanwhile, 300 meters away, the six remaining members of teams RWBY and JNPR were battling the last Boarbatusks. All of them had sustained some sort of damage, ranging from small cuts to concussions and fractured bones. Even with their Aura's in place, some of them couldn't stop the Boarbatusks from causing great harm to them. Yang, who was injured, looked down at her scroll and looked at the time: 5:40. She had not seen her sister since they left the airships at 10:30 and she was beginning to worry again. Unbeknownst to her, Ruby could see her, as she was dying. With all her strength, Ruby trying crawling towards her sister, but only made it about 5 feet before succumbing to the excruciating pain. Pyrrha saw this and more tears began to form. She looked at Ruby who was crying at this point and walked over to her and whispered _I'm sorry_ one more time before hiding Ruby and her destroyed weapon in some bushes so that no one would see her and taking off, leaving Ruby to die, alone.

Yang put her scroll away just in time to see Ren finally kill the Boarbatusk. She then saw Pyrrha running towards them, tears in her eyes and large cuts on her body.

"Where's Ruby?!" Yang yelled out at Pyrrha.

Pyrrha collapsed into Yang arms, blood flowing from right arm as a large cut could be seen.

"I'm sorry," she cried, "We were ambushed by a large pack of Beowulf's. We tried fighting them off and we thought we had succeeded, but as we were getting away one of the Beowulf's grabbed Ruby by the leg and carried her off. I tried saving her but it swung at me, giving me this cut." She pointed to the still bleeding wound. "The swing knocked me over and I couldn't get up in time to save Ruby. I'm Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry….."Pyrrha cried into Yang shoulder, who only starred into the ground in disbelief. Her sister, he only sister, her baby sister, was missing. Gone. Dead.

"We have to go find her." Jaune yelled. "She might still be alive"

But before any of them could act, five large Beowulf's could be seen on a hill top 300 meters from where they we standing. Four of them were ready for an attack while a fifth could be seen digging his snout into a bush. The seven of them knew that they couldn't fight all five of them in their current situation and that the airships would be leaving soon. They realized that they had to go and hope Ruby would be okay, however many of them doubted that. But while the rest of them were focused on the four Beowulf's ready to attack, Pyrrha was focused on the one digging in the bush. No one besides her realized what that meant.

Pyrrha immediately knew what this meant. They sensed Ruby in peril and found her and were eating her. Pyrrha cried but also knew that this would make sure that no one questioned her and that no one would find Ruby's body. She realized that she had just gotten away with murder.

The remaining members of team WBY and JNPR arrived at the temple right as the airships arrived. They boarded the ships and left, leaving one behind. The rest of the ride home was silent as they mourned the loss of their friend. Never did anyone think that Ruby would be the one to die first. No one besides Pyrrha and Blake. During the ride home, Blake turned to Pyrrha who just nodded, signifying the deed had been done and the mistake was fixed.

 **Afterword:**

 **Do you hate Pyrrha now? How about me? Did I make you cry or tear up while reading this? Well don't worry; my eyes began to water while writing this.**

 **So starting after this chapter, the following chapters will be more spread out. I have a general idea about what I'm going to do with this, but until then you are going to have to wait a bit. Also, I would like to thank those you favorite and followed already. I posted the first chapter at 2:30 in the morning and by the time I woke up at 10, there was already 10 favorites and 14 followers. So thanks**

 **Also I'd like to address one thing. I did read some of the reviews that were posted and a few of you were "unpleased" I chose Pyrrha and Blake to play the antagonist in this fanfic so I'd like to explain to you why. First off, I'm planning something with Blake in the coming chapters that require her to play a bad guy and Pyrrha, well; the actual seems to be doing fine without her in it. Not to say I didn't like Pyrrha but if the real show can do without her, then I can make her a bad guy in my fictional story. I know I'm a piece of shit. But my goal is to make you feel, whether that be anger or sadness, if you feel emotion after reading this, then I did my job.**

 **Finished Writing: December 16, 2016 1:00 P.M.**

 **Pages: 5**

 **Words: 2.5k**


	3. Chapter 3: Aftermath

**A/N:**

 **As I am writing this Foreword to the next chapter, it has only been about 18 hour since I began writing the first chapter. For some reason, I can't stop thinking about what I should write next in this story. You, the readers, seem to be enjoying it. So I'll continue to write.**

 **Starting Writing: December 16, 2016 at 6:30 P.M.**

Chapter 3: Aftermath

The airship ride home was quiet. After Blake saw that Pyrrha had done the job, she went back to comforting Yang, who was silently crying. Jaune looked distraught over the loss of his first friend at Beacon. Weiss was trying to hide her emotion, but failing. She had seen people die before, mainly from poison during family dinner. Most of the time they weren't her father's fault. Most of the time. Ren comforted Nora who fared the worst from the fight with the Boarbatusks, suffering from a concussion and a fractured wrist after coming in direct contact with a one of the spinning Boarbatusks large rounded tusks. Pyrrha just sat in silence, thinking about what she had just done.

 _I killed a huntress._ She kept repeating in her mind. _That's the golden rule of being a huntress; don't kill other humans, no matter what. If anyone finds out about this…_ The consequence of killing a huntsmen or huntress was death. Pyrrha knew what she did was wrong but also knew that in her eyes, what was done had to be done. If the other kingdoms found out a 15 year old were allowed to participate in the Vytal Festival, their kingdom would be a laughing stock. She believes that what she did was the right thing to do for the dignity of her kingdom and her school. She looked around at her friends. They all had different expressions of the same emotion, sadness. Some were crying, others were trying not to cry, and others looked like they were a statue. If they ever found out about what she did, to Ruby…

Ruby is looking down from a treetop as she watches her own self get stabbed by what she thought was her friend. She then sees this person destroy her beloved weapon and hide her in a bush. Ruby watches as she then runs back to her real friends, claiming Beowulfs attacked and killed her. And they believed it. They all believed this "thing" as she spewed out lies while the truth was just out of their reach. She watched as they then ran off, away from the truth and left her there.

 _All of them. All of them need to pay. They all believed as this scum told them lies. They need to pay, but how…_ Ruby was thinking about how they should pay when she felt something touch her shoulder. Angrily, she turned around and yelled "WHAT?!" at this person before her attitude suddenly changed

Before her was this woman with a smile on her face. She was just a bit taller than Ruby and had black and red hair. She looked down upon Ruby and stared into her silver eyes with her own pair of matching silver eyes.

"M…M…Mom?" Ruby said, tears forming at her eyes.

"Yes, sweetie." Summer responded.

Ruby ran over to hug her and began to cry more "I missed you so much."

"I know you did." Summer said, calmly

"What is this place? Where am I? What happened?"Ruby began to question her mother.

"This is limbo. You see, you were attack and presumably killed by that friend of yours."

"That thing isn't my friend."Ruby said, suddenly angry again.

"Well, whatever she is to you, she killed you. And now you are here."Summer responded

"So this is it huh? I died because of a literal back-stabbing friend. Fitting, I guess."Ruby looked down upon herself, lying in a bush, bleeding to death.

"Not quite" Ruby looked back up at Summer upon hearing this. "You see, sometimes people are given a second chance in his. A new beginning, some call it. It usually goes to the younger people. The ones that haven't lived as long. The ones that are killed in heroic ways or the ones that truly deserves it."

"Did….you get a second chance?" Ruby questioned

"No. I lived a good life. I gave birth to an extraordinary fighter and raised another. I wasn't given a second chance because I lived my purpose. It's called Destiny. My Destiny was to die on a mission, but not after leaving a lasting legacy with those that remember me."

"What's my destiny?" Ruby asked

"Silly, you are only told your destiny after you fulfilled it. And you haven't fulfilled your destiny yet." Summer said. And suddenly everything was white. Ruby called out to her mother.

"I love you. Remember that. I am always with you, even when you think you're alone." Summer said. And with that, Summer disappeared into this white haze that surrounded Ruby. Ruby curled up into a ball as the sound that the haze was producing was getting more and more intense. Ruby screaming in pain as the white haze fully engulfed her.

Ruby's eyes shot open. She was lying in a bush. The bleeding had stopped. She felt weak. She remembered what had just occurred to her and realized she was given a second chance. She sat up but she was soon reminded of the pain in her abdomen. Slowly, she removed her shirt to see this large wound on her side. It was about 4 inches long. She should be dead. But the blade had missed her vital organs by mere millimeters. Ruby soon realized that she needed to get this treated. However, it was night and Ruby had no idea where the school or the temple was. The emerald forest sat just outside Beacon but walking the wrong was would mean walking farther and farther away from help. Ruby wanted to sleep but was afraid to because of the Grimm. She was weak and vulnerable. If any Grimm, even a small Boarbatusks found her, she couldn't fight back. Not in her shape or the shape of… The Crescent Rose!

Ruby suddenly remembered what happened to her beloved weapon. She began to look for it but didn't have to look long. Lying near her was t he shattered remains of the weapon she had come to love. It was in two large pieces, the blade and the gun. The two pieces could be put back together but it would no longer retract. The pieces controlling that were scattered about and needed precision tools to repair, nothing that was available to Ruby right now.

Ruby tried to remember anything after she was stabbed. She remembered her chat with her mother, but put it off as just a crazy dream. But she remembered seeing what happened to Pyrrha and the gang after Pyrrha stabbed her. _She made up a lie about what happened to me. And they believed it_ This once again angered Ruby but decided to keep on going. _Then I heard someone say that we should go look for Ruby. It was Jaune._ Ruby remembered how sweet Jaune was to her and it made her a bit happier to know that he cared. _But why didn't they_ Ruby thought to herself. _They were injured but that usually doesn't stop them._ She then remembered the large herd of Beowulfs that surrounded her. She remembered seeing them in the dream. While four of them stood guard, a fifth was nosing around in the bush she was laying in. That should have been it. The Grimm found her. But why didn't they eat her? At first she thought back to stories she read when she was younger about huntsmen being attacked by their fellow teammates. Not surprisingly, this wasn't the first time this had happened. While rare, huntsmen and huntress do turn on their teammates. Most are caught or killed. In these stories, those that were attacked and survived were seen as friendly to the Grimm. This was due to the fact that their souls turned dark like the Grimm. However, after some thought, Ruby just put this up as stories hunters tell other hunters. Then she remembered what her mother said. _Destiny. It was destiny not to die that day. And it's my destiny to kill Pyrrha. The same way she almost killed me._ As Ruby thought to herself on how to get back, two medium sized Beowulfs lurked nearby. They were confused on what they saw:

Usually when a Grimm sees humans, they see a light. That light is their soul, their aura. Everyone has one. Yet, in this case, even though they see a light, it is dark. They are confused on whether it is a human or a Grimm, so they do not attack it, for Grimm don't kill other Grimm, unless it is to put them out of their misery.

Ruby, who was pondering to herself, looked up to see these two Beowulf's looking at her. Startled she reached for her weapon, only to remember that it was destroyed. Ruby realized that this was probably the end. But instead of attacking, the Grimm just walked away, leaving Ruby extremely puzzled. Grimm would never turn an easy meal away, especially an injured human.

Unbeknownst to Ruby, those stories were true. When a hunter or huntress is attacked by their friends, sometimes darkness does grow that confused the Grimm. However, this is only temporary and the Grimm will soon realize it is just another human, ready for the picking. But for right now, Ruby was safe. And because of this, Ruby soon feel asleep.

_  
Morning had come at Beacon, but on one got any sleep in the WBY dorm room. The whole night was spent either crying or sitting in silence. Everyone was distraught over the lost of Ruby Rose. And while most of the students of Beacon didn't know about Ruby Roses' death, word was getting out fast. When the airships returned to Beacon, a few students came to see and hear what happened in the forest, as is the usual whenever a team returns from a mission. But when they noticed that Team RWBY was missing one and they saw the looks on the faces of those that are there, they soon got the message. However, the first to know was Ozpin, who was informed late that night by one of the airship pilots who told them that only seven out of the eight students were on the ship and that the ones on the ship were visibly shaken. This lead Ozpin to believe that one of the members of Team RWBY or JNPR was missing, but he never believed it was Ruby, not until he saw it for himself.

A picture was taken of the seven students that had gotten off the airship. It was being spread like wildfire through-out the schools internet and it was always accompanied by two words: _Where's Ruby?_ Ozpin saw this after Glynda said she saw it on a student's scroll and demanded it be sent to her. After Ozpin saw this photo and caption, accompanied by the statement from the airship pilot, he came to the only logical conclusion: That Ruby Rose had been killed during the mission. Ozpin then proceeded to cancel all meetings that day in order to figure out what his next action should be. He finally decided on what his next course of actions should be: A call home.

 **Afterword**

 **What?! Three chapters in one day? This will most likely never happen again. I just couldn't stop thinking about this so I wrote a new chapter. And let me address some concerns you might have**

 **Yes, I understand that the whole darkness instead of light is a bit of a cop-out, but I just needed something to distract the Grimm long enough for Ruby to recover her strength. Let's be realistic, without this Ruby would be dead before morning came. Don't worry; I won't rely on this for long, just long enough.**

 **Finished Writing: December 16, 2016 at 9:27 P.M.**

 **Pages: 4**

 **Words: 2k**


	4. Chapter 4: The Call

**A/N:**

 **So how do you guys like the story so far? As of now, I am kind of at a standstill with the story. I have the final chapter pretty much planned out but I am having a bit of trouble for the plotline in between now and the end. So this is the point where the chapters become more spread out.**

 **Also, I am beginning to write of a new dark fanfic. It will not be in any way related to this one and will have a completely different plot line. That one will be out shortly but for right now, my main focus is on this one so don't fret.**

 **Starting Writing: December 18, 2016 at 10:44 A.M.**

Ozpin sometimes hated his job. Well actually, most of time, especially now. With the Vytal Festival coming to Beacon in the coming weeks and rumors of an evil plot beginning to surface, he had his hands full. But now he had an even more terrible plan ahead of him: Telling the parents of Ruby that she was missing, presumably dead.

Ozpin rarely had to make calls home to parents. Most of the time it was to inform them of a student's behavior or grades. Sometimes, however, it was to inform them of an injury the student suffered that required medical assistance and that would put them out of combat for a few weeks. But never had he have to make a call home to report a student's death. Not until now…

Ozpin put on his work face, the face the students see when he is giving them an announcement or a speech before a mission. Calmly, he dialed two people, Taiyang Xiao Long, father of Ruby Rose, and Qrow Branwen, uncle and mentor of Ruby. Taiyang was the first to pick up and his face appeared on Ozpin's screen. A few seconds later, Qrow's face appeared.

"Ozpin, what's this about?" Qrow said, demandingly

"Mr. Branwen and Mr. Xiao Long. There has been an incident at the school involving one of your children." Ozpin replied

Taiyang face palmed and said "Let me guess. Yang blew up part of the school."

"Unfortunately, no. This isn't about Yang…" Ozpin said.

Qrow and Taiyang both looked at Ozpin with a mix of confusion and curiosity when they heard that Yang wasn't the source of the call home.

"…It's about young Miss Rose"

"Ozpin, what happened?" Taiyang demanded

"During a recent mission, young Miss Rose was attacked by a number of Beowulf's. She was partnered up with Pyrrha Nikos, you may have heard of her. Anyways, Pyrrha explain that once they thought they had killed them all, an Alpha Beowulf suddenly appeared from the bushes and attack Miss. Nikos, knocking her against a tree and unable to fight. She then explained she saw the Beowulf grab Ruby with its mouth and take off with her. Pyrrha tried to go after her but was unable due to a large gash in her arm."

"Ozpin, what are you saying?" Qrow sounded like he was angry yet, still curious.

"Ruby Rose is dead." Ozpin said, emotionless

It was the four words neither of them wanted to hear. Ruby Rose, the fifteen year old prodigy was dead, killed by the creatures of the dark. Taiyang looked distraught. First he lost Raven, then Summer, now Ruby. Pretty much everyone he cared about was gone. The only thing left for him was Yang. Qrow just starred at Ozpin, a mix of anger and sadness could be seen on his face. All three of them just sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Qrow broke the silence.

"What about her team?" Qrow said.

"Pardon?" Ozpin said.

"What about her team, Ozpin?! Where were they at? And why wasn't she with them?"

"Miss. Xiao Long explained that Miss. Belladonna, one of Ruby's teammates said that they should split up into teams of two, to better learn each others fighting patterns to help them in the Vytal Festival." Ozpin explained.

"So why was Ruby with a member of another team?" Qrow sounded angrier at this point.

"You see, Team JNPR went with them. The two teams have been friends since the first day and decided that they should go together on the mission."Ozpin told him.

"What mission were they on?" Taiyang said finally, but without looking at them.

"The mission was to go into the Emerald Forest to take out a large herd of Boarbatusks that was spotted in the region." Ozpin continued.

"That still doesn't answer my question of why Ruby was with someone of a different team." Qrow sounded like if he didn't get the answer he wanted soon, he would try and punch Ozpin through the screen.

"According to Miss. Nikos, she volunteered to go with Ruby, since Ruby would be eager to train with a professional."

"Ozpin, that doesn't make sense. Why would Pyrrha want to go with Ruby if she was never going to fight alongside her?" Taiyang was beginning to sound angry as well.

"Miss Nikos also told me that she secretly did it to find out how Ruby fought in case they were matched together in the Vytal Festival so she knew how to beat her." Ozpin said.

This seemed to calm Qrow and Taiyang.

"Mr. Branwen and Mr. Xiao Long, I would suggest you to get some rest. I know this must be hard cope with. I will inform you if any updates arise. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yeah, thanks Oz." Qrow quickly ended the call

Taiyang said nothing but looked at Ozpin through the screen. Ozpin could see some tears in his eyes as he ended the call. Ozpin got up from his chair and looked out the large windows in his office. He looked towards the Emerald Forest. "I'm sorry, Miss Rose." Ozpin said silently as he turned from the window and sat back down in his chair.

Meanwhile in the WBY dorm, all three of them sat in silence. They had been excused from classes for a bit until they could recover. It was one of the rare moments since Ruby had died that yang wasn't crying. The room was never this silent when Ruby was there. There was always something happening. Weiss sat on her bed, thinking of the good times her and Ruby had. Ruby was the first person that Weiss could consider a friend. Ruby always cared for her even when she didn't. Yang lay on her bed, thinking of all the fun times she and Ruby had as kids. Playing in the snow or chasing each other around the house or making cookies with Summer. Yang was on the verge of tears again but held them back for she had been crying for the last 2 days now. Blake was laying on her bed, not thinking of the good times with Ruby or the fun times, but what she did to her. Even though she didn't actually kill Ruby or see her die, she still felt guilty. She had distracted Yang and told her everything was going to be alright, even when she knew it wasn't.

In the JNPR dorm, everything there was quiet as well. They too had been excused from classes, but only for a couple of days. There was little crying in this room, but there was also little talking. Ren and Nora sat together, thinking of all the funny times they had with Ruby, like the food fight at the beginning of last semester. Jaune sat his bed, looking at the wall. He had been the source of the crying in the room for multiple reasons. Mainly, he felt guilty that he didn't even attempt to go find Ruby. He understood the dangers but knew that if it was him that was in trouble, Ruby would try to find him at any cost. Also, Ruby was the first person at Beacon that he made friends with. They were both team leaders with the odds stacked against them. He also loved Ruby. He knew that Pyrrha loved him, but he loved Ruby more. But because of his social nature, he could never confronter her about it. So he was caught in this love triangle. But now that Ruby was gone, he knew that he would never be able to tell her what he felt about her.

All the while, Pyrrha was sitting on her bed, thinking about what she had done. She looked at the bandage that covered the gash on her left bicep that she inflicted on herself. It was a reminder of what she had done. She no longer felt any guilt or remorse for her actions. In her mind, she knew it was the right thing to do. She knew that Ruby had to die in order for her school to not be made a laughing stock at the Vytal Festival. She did not cry so feel bad. In fact, she felt good, even happy at times knowing that Ruby Rose was dead, never to return. Or so she thought.

Unbeknownst to her, Ruby had in fact survived, and she was coming back with a vengeance.

 **Afterword**

 **So this chapter was mainly about what is happening at Beacon since Ruby's supposed death. The Aftermath it has caused and how everyone feels about it. The next chapter will focus mainly on Ruby and what she is doing. However, I am having problems trying to figure out keep Ruby alive without using bullshit reasons. Anyways, expect that chapter soon. The chapters will be coming out frequently. Most likely there will be at least one a week unless something arises. That's a huge jump for one a month like I was claiming earlier and that's because I have gotten bored of pretty much all the games on my computer. Also because most of them don't work due to me running them on a Windows XP, made in 2001. So yeah, everything is slow.**

 **Finished Writing: December 18, 2016 at 12:14 P.M.**

 **Pages: 4**

 **Words: 1.6k**


	5. Chapter 5: Recovery

**A/N:**

 **This chapter will mainly be about Ruby, if not the entire chapter. I'm trying to stay away from bullshit reasons to keep her alive and I'm trying to aim more for luck but the two might get mixed up. If that happens, I'm sorry. This chapter is set about 5 days after Ruby was attacked. Oh and one more thing. If you hate reading gory stuff, sorry in advance.**

 **Started Writing: December 18, 2016 at 12:18 P.M.**

Chapter 5: Recovery

It had been 5 days since Ruby was attacked by Pyrrha and left for dead. She was currently treating her wounds. She had remembered a certain vine that grew in the Emerald Forest alleviated pain. She had heard stories during Prof. Port's classes that they were used during the Great War by field doctors when they ran about of proper medication. However, Ruby knew that the vine's healing properties were just a quick fix. The field doctors used them when the soldier's injuries were only minor and they needed to go back to fighting. Ruby knew this, and she also knew that if she didn't find real help soon, the wounds could become infected. But she also understood that if she returned now, Pyrrha could easily kill her when no one is looking. Plus, she couldn't fight Pyrrha in her state and Ruby knew that if she wanted to kill Pyrrha, there would be a fight. So Ruby opted to stay away from Beacon until she recovered enough. So Ruby walked away from the school in hopes of finding someone who could help. But the odds of that were slim. Her only hope was to maybe find another team from Beacon on a mission and steal some supplies without them noticing. But as minutes turned into hours and night began to fall, Ruby realized how stupid and unlikely this plan sounded.

So Ruby, with all of her strength, pulled herself into a tree so that she was safer from the Grimm. She quickly fell asleep for she was tired from the day's activities. She was still pretty weak from the attack. Her aura was pretty drained because it was one of the reasons that she was still alive and because of that, her semblance hadn't fully recovered so she couldn't use it.

Ruby had a dream about her meeting Summer. It was the same one she had a few days ago. The dream had been repeating in her mind since it happened. It was so realistic that Ruby was beginning to think it actually happened. But as she went through the dream, she remembered saying that they all need to die and she looked at Yang and all of her real friends. It was at thing point that Ruby decided that only Pyrrha was to die for they had nothing to do with it. While she still was angry at them for believing Pyrrha, she could never hurt them for they cared so much for her.

Suddenly, Ruby eyes opened to the sound of voices. It was the middle of the night. Ruby didn't think that anyone should be up at this time in the forest. The voices seemed to be walking in her direction. Ruby quietly slipped down the tree a bit to see who it was.

"Would you shut up? You're going to attract Grimm!"

"Oh I'm sorry. I thought you weren't scared of any Grimm you little baby"

"Just because we are bandits doesn't mean I'm not scared of Grimm"

Bandits. Ruby should have known. Only they would walk these woods at night. Ruby could see two. One male one female, but didn't know if there were any more. Lucky, because of her position, they wouldn't be able to see her.

"Yeah whatever. Hey, did you hear the rumors?"

"What rumors?"

"Apparently, some huntress in training from the stupid school nearby got killed in these woods"

"No fucking way"

"Yeah. And they never found her body. Said she was eating by Beowulfs."

"I'm calling bullshit on that. Where did you hear that?"

"I might have been eavesdropping on some kids from that school yesterday. That was all they talked about for like 20 minutes. They said her name was Ruby something and that she was only 15. Good I wanted to kill them so bad."

"Hold on, 15? Yeah, it's bullshit. You're not allowed into any huntsmen academy until you're at least 17."

"And who would you know this; you never went to huntsmen academy."

"Yeah, but my brother did. Anyways, that story has to be some ghost tale to scare the wimps here."

The bandits soon were out of earshot, but Ruby couldn't stop thinking about what they said. So word had gotten out about her. She knew it would eventually, but not this soon. The whole school probably knew by now. And if the whole school knew, that means Ozpin knows. And if he knows that mean…

Ruby realized that Qrow and Taiyang probably knew by now. She couldn't imagine how Taiyang must feel, know that almost everyone he cared about was dead. Or how Qrow feels. Qrow almost more a father figure than Taiyang was. And now he thinks she's dead. Thinking about this made Ruby tear up and want to cry. But as she was about to, she stopped herself. _No._ She thought to herself. _No more crying, those times have come and pass. Now is the time for action. Stop playing the victim, the weakling, you are strong. You will get over this. If you continue to cry, then you should have died in that bush ._ And it was from that point that Ruby decided to no longer play the weakling. Starting tomorrow, she would train. She would train to fight with the weapons given to her. She would find a way to become strong again. She would find a way to kill Pyrrha. And nothing and nothing would stand in her way.

Morning broke and Ruby decided what her first courses of actions were. Firstly, figure out how to repair her weapon. As of now, it was tied together sloppily using some rope she had found. The weapon was nowhere near fighting condition. She could attach the blade to the gun, but it would take some work. Secondly, she would find something that could hear her. If she needed to harm someone in order to get that, she would. Thirdly, train. Train until she could no longer stand. With her plans set, she got to work.

First, she needed to find something to hold the two piece of her weapon together. The first thing she thought of was some sap. The sap in the forest was extremely sticky but she knew that even with that sap, one good hit would tear in apart. As she looked at the weapon she realized all she needed was something that could fit in the holes where the screws would usually fit. But as she was looking, she heard a familiar voice.

"Well, well, well. Look what we have here."

Ruby looked up and was immediately was disheartened by what she saw. Standing in front of her were the two bandits from last night. They had their weapons drawn and were pointing them at Ruby.

"If it isn't a little girl. Say, what are you doing out here, all alone?"

Ruby knew that whatever she said wouldn't matter for they would still either kill her, so Ruby did the one thing that no one was expecting: She told the truth

"My name is Ruby Rose. I'm 15 years old and I was left here by my so called friends 6 days ago."

Both bandits looked at her in awe.

"Holy fucking shit. Those stories were true. Damn Dusty, you were right. I owe you."

"Hold on a second. In those stories, that Ruby died. But she isn't dead. Or am I seeing shit, Misty"

"Oh yeah, you're right. Never mind, I don't owe you shit."

"So why would you lie to us. Don't you know who we are?"

"Doesn't matter. Look at her stomach, she's injured. She won't put up a fight, just take her things and let's go."

"Ah come on, let me kill her. I haven't killed anything that wasn't either a Grimm or dinner in like 3 weeks."

"Fine, take her stuff and then kill her. But make it quick, it could be a trap."

Upon hearing this last line, Ruby knew she had to act. If she didn't, they would kill her. Ruby looked at who was about to kill her. The female one had a crossbow that looked like it could be folded up into a long blade of some sort. The male one had a rifle that seemed it could be folded up into a long melee type device. Ruby also noticed a knife sticking out of Misty's boot. As she got closer, Ruby realized how easy it would be to take them. The hard part would be using them. Ruby had recovered some, but not enough for a full scale fight. Ruby realized that if she was to make it out alive, she would have to kill them both quickly, in rapid succession.

"Hey, bitch. Give. Me. Your. Things." Ruby realized that she was basically on top of her at thing point, and she looked up at her.

"Everything you see is everything I got." Ruby said, demandingly

"Ohhhh, this little Rose has some thorns. I'm going to enjoy killing you."

"Fucking. Try. Me." Ruby then spit in her face.

Misty wiped the spit off her face before punching Ruby in the stomach, right where were wound was. This put Ruby on her knees. "Fine, slow and painful it is."

But before she could land another hit, Ruby took the knife from Misty's boot and stabbed her in the stomach. Using Misty's body to propel herself up a bit, Ruby stood back up and whispered in her ear "I'm fine with that." Ruby then dragged the knife across her stomach, spilling her organs.

At this point, Dusty, who wasn't looking at Ruby because he was looking around for anyone who could attack them said, "Would you hurry up and kill h….." Dusty turned to see Ruby holding a knife covered in blood and his partner laying a pile of her own organs and blood, dead. Dusty pointed his weapon at Ruby and screamed "YOU MOTHERFUC…." But before he could finish, Ruby threw the knife at him, hitting him right in the left eye, causing him to drop dead.

Ruby just stood there, two bodies surrounding her. Both had some sort of fatal injury that Ruby had caused. Ruby just looked at her hand, which were covered in blood. At this point, her stab wound began to hurt again. The adrenaline had caused it not to hurt for the brief time it took to kill those two. But instead of guilt for killing two humans, the golden rule of being a huntress, never kill a human being, whether they deserve it or not, she felt satisfaction. She had just killed two people and she felt happy. She didn't have a care in the world. The only thing she saw was parts to fix her weapon. Those weapons could be dismantled and used to repair her weapon. Ruby also noticed they both had a backpack. A backpack could have some food or even some medication to treat her wound. And sure enough, there were some clean bandages and some medication to help her. With this she figured she would be back in shape to fight in about a week or two

So as quickly as she could, she gathered up the weapons and all the supplies she needed because she knew that they Grimm would soon come to feast on the corpses. Ruby soon left with two need weapons, some ammo she found and some medical. And with that she had knocked two things off her to-do list. She had both found parts and medical supplies. Now all that was left was to train. Ruby didn't turn around to see what she had done, for she could see it in her mind. All she knew if that the Grimm would have a good meal tonight. However, the Grimm didn't get to them first.

Not 30 minutes after Ruby left, team AZID, a second year team from Beacon came across the grizzly scene. Immediately, they knew it was a murder and not a Grimm attack two reason. The first being that no Grimm would ever leave humans in that state and Ruby had forgotten to take the knife sticking out of Dusty's eye. The students immediately called the school to report the incident. Within minutes, two airships full of faculty and the RHA (Remnant Huntsmen Association) detectives arrived and began the investigation. It didn't take long to learn the two were bandits but one thing was lingering in their minds. Who killed these people and why?

Word of the report soon made it back to Beacon where Ozpin was informed. He was taken aback about the report. The first thing he thought of was that it was in self defense. But usually, those who attack in self defense are the ones to report it. In this case, whoever did it didn't want to be seen. As Ozpin went over possible suspects and motives, he could have never guess that Ruby Rose, someone who wouldn't hurt a fly, as long as it wasn't a Grimm, was the one behind all of this.

Ruby meanwhile had finished fixing her weapon. Even though she knew it was a lost cause, she still tried to make it fold back in, which failed. Still she was able to make the bond between scythe and gun solid as ever. Plus, the medication was doing its work. Ruby was beginning to feel stronger so it was at this point she decided to train, using her new weapon. She called it The Reaper because it reminded her of the Grim Reaper's scythe. Ruby trained until it was beginning to become dark, nearly 3 hours later. Ruby, being tired and thirsty, went down to a river she saw nearby. When she got there, after taking a drink, she got a good look at herself and was taken aback and what she saw.

Instead of seeing this happy girl she was use to seeing, she saw a broken woman. She saw someone who had lost hope in the world. It was at this moment that they action of what she did today hit her. She killed people. Two of them. And even though they deserved it, she still killed them. And it was in the soft glow of the setting sun that she realized what she had become. She had become one of the creatures of the night. She had become a Grimm. Her clothes, once red, were now a darker shade of red, almost black, from all the blood that she had come in contact with in the last week. Her cape, once seamless and perfect, now also blood stained and ripped. All she needed were a pair of glowing red eyes and some bones sticking out of her and she would fit the part. And the part that scared her the most: She like it.

She liked the new look and like what it made her look like. No longer was she a little girl. No longer did she seem like the victim. No longer did she look like she needed to be saved. Now, she looked strong. She looked prepare for a fight. She looked like the hero, or the villain. She looked like she was the one everyone should be scared of. She looked like she was ready to kill anyone who stood in her way. And you know what, she was right. Anyone who stood in her way of Pyrrha, she would not hesitate to put down. She looked like the Grim Reaper. And now, she would act the part too.

 **Afterword:**

 **So yeah, that chapter happened. This started off as just an update to what Ruby was doing and what her plan was and it evolved into that.**

 **So as you can tell, Ruby is no longer afraid to kill. She will stop at nothing to get her revenge. Anything or anyone that stand in her way will be put down, by any means necessary. By the time you read this, I will already be at work on the next chapter. It will come out soon and it will mainly be an update on Beacon.**

 **Finished Writing: December 18, 2016 at 10:07 P.M.**

 **Pages: 6**

 **Words: 2.7k**


	6. Chapter 6: How Times Changes Things

**A/N**

 **I wanted to say some things before I begin this chapter. First off, the story is getting a bit darker and there are going to be some deaths so just bare with it. Secondly, I am probably going to make this fanfic no longer than 12 chapters. I could do more but I would probably run out of plausible ideas to keep Ruby alive. Thirdly, it would be greatly appreciated if one of you guys could make a cover art for this. I'm terrible at drawing and Photoshop and I think a cover art would look pretty cool. Anyways, let's talk about the chapter.**

 **There is going to be a time skip at the beginning this chapter. Like I said before, if I wrote everything down for Ruby, the story would be really long and it would get implausible. This is probably going to be a 50/50 split between Ruby and Beacon, maybe a bit more Ruby; we'll just have to see.**

 **Started Writing: December 19, 2016 at 10:22 P.M.**

Chapter 6: How Time Changed Things

It's been about a month since Miss Rose was killed in the Emerald Forest, but right now, Ozpin has more urgent things to worry about. Ozpin was in the midst of trying to Miss Rose when he first heard about the murder of the two bandits. Since then, there have been over 15 murders in and surrounding the Emerald Forest. The RHA has official classified it as a serial killer on the loose. Almost all of the victims have had the same injuries, long clean cuts. Similar to those left by long blade weapons. However, because there have never been any survivors or clue left at the scene, the RHA has little to go on. All they know is that the attacker is on the larger side. Their reasoning, based on the size of the cuts, the weapon has to be pretty large and no one less than 5 foot 10 would be able to carry such a large weapon with ease. At least, that's what they believe.

Since the attack, Ruby has grown stronger than ever. Her weapon, nicknamed The Reaper, has since been reinforced with some Grimm bone for the blade. Grimm bone is stronger than the steel used in her previous blade and it can be sharpened more to a point. And while she couldn't make the blade transform into the handle like it used to, she has made the handle fold up her Qrow's. And while she has killed people over the last month, they had all been people that had deserved it. Bandits, pillagers, killers, thefts. She had never killed another Huntsmen or Huntress. Not yet. She knew that if she had to, she would, but she was not looking forwards to that day. Her stab wound has basically just become a large scar thanks to the medicine she has "confiscated" over the last month. She has also taken some money for clothes and food in case she runs into a town or village. She currently has about 600 liens, a decent amount for a room, some food, and some shopping if she came across a large town. She also carries some fake ids of people that she could pass for in case she is stopped.

After about a day's worth of walking, Ruby came across a large town. She decided to spend the night there instead of in the woods, like she has for the last several nights. She stopped in to the local inn and asked for a room for one

"What brings you to town miss? You look a bit young to be traveling alone."The Inn keeper asked

"I'm just passing through."Ruby replied.

"But that still doesn't explain why you look so young miss. Are you lost? You know, Vale is not too far from here. I can call an airship to come pick you up."

"NO!" Ruby exclaimed. The Inn Keeper was slightly taken aback a bit. "Sorry, I just get a bit upset when people say I look young. Here's my ID." She handed him one of the ID's that looked a bit like her.

"Hmmm." The Inn Keeper looked at the picture, then at Ruby, then back at the picture. He seemed to be taking a bit too long looking at the picture. Ruby began to worry that he might call the police so she slowly grabbed her weapon, which she kept strapped to her back. Finally, the Inn Keeper spoke up.

"Alright miss Fiye. Your room is 105. Also, just FYI, I would update your picture. Your hair is a lot shorten in the photo. Also wash up, you seem like you haven't taken a shower in a month. " The Inn Keeper said jokingly

"Thank you." Ruby quickly took the photo from the man and walked to her room. Once inside, she quickly put her things on her bed and ran to the bathroom, hoping to see herself in the mirror. She hadn't gotten a good look at herself since the night she killed the two bandits. What she saw was different person.

Instead of having short, red and black hair, she had long, pitch black hair with red frosted tips. Her face was dirty, covered in dirt and what she assumed was some blood. She looked at her clothes and saw that they were all tattered, torn in places that skin shouldn't been showing. Ruby quickly realized that if she wanted to go out on the town, she would have to find a new outfit. But first, she decided to take a nice, hot shower. It was one of the only things she was looking forwards to. She quickly undressed and hopped into the shower. The warm water that cascaded over her felt like heaven. It felt like someone was hugging her again. Someone that loved her. Someone like, Yang. Before she knew it, she was crying. She missed her family. She missed her friends. She missed her old life, but she knew that, she could never go back to her old life. Her family, her friends, they would never look at her the same. She would never be the happy little girl that she all knew and loved. That girl died in that bush that day and the girl that emerged was a completely different person. Someone with much darker thoughts. Someone who wanted to kill.

Ruby sat in that shower for what felt like an eternity, crying and thinking before finally getting out. She dried off and looked at the time. 5:45 it read. The she wanted to leave in her room before dark which was in about an hour so Ruby wasn't in any real rush. She put on her clothes, which had many holes in them, a few in some, unsightly places, and stuffed her hood in her bad for safe keeping. She knew her first stop would be a clothing store.

Once she had left her room, she went down to the lobby to ask the Inn Keeper for directions to a clothing store.

"There are a couple in this town, what kind of clothes do you need?"

"Some darker ones. I'm not into real bright colors."

"Ah, so you want to go to the Bright Idea. It's a little bit of a walk, about 3 blocks that way." The Inn Keeper pointed right. "Stuff is a bit pricey in there."

"Don't worry, I have some money." And with that, Ruby left. It took only about 15 minute before she got there. Once inside, she walked over to the petite sizes. Ruby hated that she had to shop there, but it was the only size the fit comfortably. She quickly found a dark corset with white laces and a black skirt with some gray fluff at the end. She tried them on and they fight pretty well. She decided that was all she needed. But as she was checking out, she saw the nice black cape. She quickly added it to the cart.

"You like black, don't you?" The cashier said.

"It matches my soul." Ruby said in a monotone voice.

"Doesn't it all." The cashier said, in a sarcastic voice.

"What did you mean by that?" Ruby said, getting a little angry.

"Black matches everyone's soul that shops here."

"Oh." Ruby was still a bit annoyed, but decided not to let it get to her.

Ruby's next stop was a bar and grill. Ruby had only been eating prepackaged food and whatever she could kill for the last month so right now, a nice cheeseburger sounded really delicious. Ruby found one not too far from the Inn and decided this place was as good as any. She sat down and ordered a large soft drink and a cheeseburger. But before she got her food, something came on the news that really through a wrench in her plan for the night.

"Breaking now!" The TV's all of a sudden all changed to two news anchors, one woman and one man, talking on screen. "Three more bodies have been found. All of which bare the same markings on them. Large clean cuts." This last statement really got here attention. "That's right, but this time, the RHA has made an unbelievable discovery, a living person." Ruby almost spit out the drink she was drinking. "The man had large deep cuts but someone managed to hang on long enough for help to arrive. The man was taken to the regional hospital in Vale where he was questioned about whom, or what attacked him. And this is what he had to say:"

The feed cut to a man in a hospital bed surrounded by cameras and microphones. "This…this…person just attacked us. She came out of nowhere. And when we told her to leave, it was like in the blink of an eye she had already killed one of my friends. Any before we could defend ourselves, she was already on top of us." "How did you know it was a girl?" One of the reporters asked. "Well, she was small, is looked to be maybe 5' 2" maybe 5' 3" and she wore a type of boot that was also heels." One of the RHA officials in the room asked him what she looked like. "I never saw her face. She wore this cloak the covered it. She had on some red clothing, although it seemed to be stained almost black. The only thing I can think to call her was…The Grim Reaper." And with this the recording cut and the news casters were back on screen. "Really harrowing stuff. The RHA is familiar with this person, as they have been responsible for multiple attacks across the area." "Using what the man said and other evidence found at the scene, the RHA has made this composite sketch of what the attacker would look like. If you see this person, please do not engage they are considered to be extremely dangerous. Instead, call the local police or Huntsmen Association." Instead of a usual face, there was a whole body image and Ruby pretty much had a mini heart attack when that image came on screen. It looked exactly what she looked like at this current moment. Soon, murmurs could be heard throughout the restaurant as multiple people look in Ruby's direction. Ruby knew that if she stayed there any longer, she would likely be confronted by security or police.

But as she was about to pay and leave, someone grabbed her arm. Ruby looked up to see a tall, beefy man standing next to her. "Let go" she said, yanking away, but the man's grip was tight.

"You're not going anywhere until police arrive, Miss Fiye." It was at this moment that Ruby realized that the man standing in front of her was the Inn Keeper. "I had some of my employees go through your things after you left. And they found multiple ID's in your bag."

"What?! You can't do that! That's against the law!" Ruby was now tugging a bit harder at the man.

"So is identity fraud. Plus, you look a lot like that person on TV they just said was extremely dangerous. So until the police come here and arrest you, you're stuck with me."

"Let go of me, or I will force you to." Ruby was now demanding the man to let go of her.

"I cannot do that."

"This is your last warning." Ruby was slowly reaching for her weapon.

"Or what?"

"This!" And with that, Ruby quickly unfurled her weapon and sliced the man's hand off. She quickly dropped to his knee in pain and Ruby used this distraction to get out of there quickly using her semblance. She ran all the way to her room where she gathered her things that were spread out all over the bed and the room. Once gathered, quickly ran out of the building and into the nearby woods. She never looked back, she kept on running. But as she ran, tears began to form. She had just attacked the first person that didn't deserve to be attacked. He was just doing the right thing. And Ruby injured him. Ruby ran for what seemed like hours before finally stopping. Once she had stopped, she collapsed, partially out of pure tiredness and partially because she couldn't continue to run and cry. So she climbed into a tree so she would be safe and just started crying. She cried for her family, she cried for the man, she cried for the person that she had become. She cried herself to sleep that night.

At the same time as this was occurring, the WBY dorm was crowding around the TV. They had since been required to go back to class and go on missions again. The crying in the room was at a minimum, and the team was trying to move on. But news of a 5 foot 2 girl killing people in and around the Emerald Forest had gotten their attention. As the 11 o'clock news came on, they all crowded around the small TV in their room and listened.

"As you know, we've been following the breaking story of the man that survived death. Since then, we have learned that he had been a part of a group of bandits that had raided a town not too long before he was attacked and we have released the composite sketch of the attack, her it is again. Once again, please do not engage they are considered to be extremely dangerous. Instead, call the local police or Huntsmen Association." The image popped up on screen and all three of them got a good look at it.

"It's her. It has to be her!" Yang said, tears forming in her eyes.

"As much as I would love to believe it's her, it isn't Yang. She's gone." Weiss said, trying to comfort Yang.

"But how many people do you know that fit that description?" Yang was basically crying at this point.

"She's dead Yang! Gone! Never to be seen again!" Blake yelled at her.

Yang looked at her, her eyes now red and watery, ready to kill Blake. But when she saw that Blake was crying as well, Yang sat back down and began crying. Blake saw this and began to comfort her and saying "I'm sorry" over and over. Suddenly, Weiss yelled at them. "Hey! Look!" All three of them looked at the screen as the newscasters began to talk again.

"We are just receiving word of an attack at a bar near Vale. The attacker was said to be the Grim Reaper." At this, all three girl's eyes widened. "The attack took place at the bar and grill in the town of Hakone, a one hour airship ride from Vale. The man attacked was a local Inn Keeper who confronted the girl about a stole id. When he refused to let go of her, she pulled out a large scythe and cut off his hand before making an extremely fast getaway. VNN has acquired the CCTV footage from the attack. We have blurred out the gory bits for you."

The feed cut to a black and white but clear CCTV clip. In the middle of the screen, you could see a young girl suddenly pull a large scythe from her back and attack the man before seemingly vanish. The three girls couldn't believe what they were seeing. This woman, this girl, looked almost exactly like Ruby from the future. At this point, Yang came to the conclusion that it was Ruby and began to cry in joy.

"I told you! I told you! She is alive!" Yang was both crying and cheering at the same time.

"Yang, hold on a second. The girl, no matter how much it looks like Ruby, can't be her." Weiss said.

Yang turned to the girl, a look of anger in her eyes as she was destroying her hope. "And why is that, Ice Queen."

"Because Ruby doesn't hurt people!" Weiss snapped back. "Ruby would never cut someone's hand off, let along kill over 15 people."

"She's right Yang. No matter how much we all want her back, she isn't coming back. I'm sorry." Blake hugged Yang after saying this, to which Yang basically erupted into tears and collapsed on the floor. Weiss soon joined them and all three of them began to cry.

All of team RWBY, no matter how far away they were from each other, all of them cried themselves to sleep that night.

 **Afterword**

 **Sorry**

 **I plan to make these chapters somewhat happy but sometimes you need to have a sad moment or two. And if you noticed, Blake is starting to feel bad about what role she had in killing Ruby. That is going to play a big role in the coming chapters. Also if you notice, these chapters are getting longer and longer. This chapter is over 3000 words, my longest one yet.**

 **Also, at this rate, I might have the whole thing done by early next year. I would say by the end of 2016 but I have a lot of plans for the week in between Christmas and New Years. I don't want you to be surprised if I don't post a chapter for a few days in the coming week so I warning you ahead of time. Also, I'm beginning to feel sick so that too may delay some chapters.**

 **Finished Writing: December 20, 2016 at 12:41 A.M.**

 **Pages: 6**

 **Words: 3k**


	7. Chapter 7: Plans

**A/N:**

 **Nearly 4 chapters in one day to 4 days without one chapter, I guess I have some explaining to do. You see, like I said at the end of chapter 6, I was being to feel sick as I was coming down with a cold. Well that cold took all the motivation out of me to do anything that wasn't lay on my bed and watch YouTube so that's all I did for four days. But finally, I'm getting around to writing this chapter. But don't celebrate quite yet. This will most likely be my last chapter of 2016. When I began writing these chapters, I had nothing but free time, but now, as the year draws to a close, I'm making plans with family that will take up most of my time. Anyways, on to what's happening.**

 **There is no time skip this chapter. It's starting off with Ruby where we left her. With how I'm planning this out, there is going to be two or three more chapters of Ruby preparing and whatnot and three more for the final battle and whatnot, split up evenly. So prepare, those chapters will be coming out next year.**

 **Starting Writing: December 24, 2016 at 4:30 P.M.**

Chapter 7: Plans

Ruby woke up in a tree. She faintly remembered what had happened the previous night. She felt really bad about what she had done, but decided it was necessary for her to get out of there, no matter the cost. She remembered crying in the tree about what happened and realized that she had cried herself to sleep. She wanted to cry more but decided that if she did, she'd run the risk of being heard by someone or something, so she decided to leave. So, with her weapon strapped to her back, she took off using her semblance, leaving behind black rose pedals as she flew through the forest.

After only about 5 minutes, Ruby's semblance was drained but she had covered about 3 miles in that time, so she decided to walk from here. But as she was about to leave, she heard some voices coming from her left. So Ruby quickly jumped into a tree so she could see the area around her from a higher vantage point. There, she saw what looked like a team of two Huntsmen and two Huntresses talking among themselves as they packed up their thing from what looked like a campsite. Ruby jumped to a tree closer to them as silently as she could so she could hear their conversation.

"What was that?"

"What was what, Razz?"

"I heard something rustling in the trees over there!" Razz pointed to the tree Ruby was hidden in. Ruby slowly grabbed her weapon, preparing for a fight.

"I don't see anything. Dude, you're going crazy."

"Seriously, I heard something move, Sizz. It's probably a Grimm that we as the defenders of Vale have to do for our job."

"Razz, there is nothing there. You probably heard a small, harmless animal jump from one tree to another." Sizz was trying to calm his teammate down, while also trying not to laugh.

"No dude, it was sounded huge, like maybe a small Beowulf or something…"Razz was now getting a bit irritated that no one was listening when one of his other teammates yelled something at the two.

"Hey, idiots! Did you forget that I have owl ears? If there was a Grimm, I could hear its low growling and guess what, I hear nothing!"

"Flaye's right. If there was a Grimm, she could hear it."

"Alright Azuli, you don't always have to side with her."

"Well, if she's right, which most of time she is, I'll side with her." Azuli responded.

"Thanks Azuli." Flaye responded.

"Oh just get a room already you two." Sizz seemed annoyed by them.

"Only when you and Razz get one." Flaye snapped back.

"Alright, let's not fight over something as simple as whether Razz is an idiot or not. We're Team SAFR and we've been together since we graduated Beacon two years ago. Plus, it's not the Grimm we have to worry about right now." Said Azuli

"Okay, if it isn't the man-eating monsters that just eat us for fun, and then what do we need to worry about?" Sizz seemed a bit curious by what his teammate had just said.

"Have you not heard the reports of "The Grim Reaper" yet?" Azuli questioned her teammates.

Razz spoke up, "Oh yeah, I heard about that. Someone or something is stalking these woods, killing any and all who cross her path."

"Her path?" Sizz said.

"Yeah "her path". The only person ever to survive her attack was recorded as saying she told about 5 foot 3 and welded a large scythe with Grimm bone for a blade. She never spoke, only killed." Razz replied.

"Okay, but did you hear about the attack just last night?" Azuli said.

"What attack?" Razz asked, curious.

"Apparently, she was spotted at a nearby town eating at the bar and grill. When confronted, she cut off the hand of the local Inn Keeper who was trying to restrain her." Azuli said.

"How can the Grim Reaper just stroll into a bar and grill and order food without drawing attention to herself?" Flaye chimed in.

"Well, according to the report I found on my scroll, she was wearing civilian clothing and was acting like any normal person would." Azuli responded.

"So you're telling me, a girl that is a serial killer, killing anything that gets in her way, was calmly eating at a restaurant?" Sizz questioned.

"Yes." Azuli seemed confident in her answer.

"Maybe it's someone that was trying to fit back into society." Razz commented.

"Maybe. Anyways, let's get going on the mission. Those Beowulf's aren't going to kill themselves." Sizz said, leading the way.

"I hope they do kill themselves, that way we can go home." Flaye said.

And with that, all four teammates walked off into the woods, away from their now deconstructed campsite where Ruby was still hiding in the tree. So, Ruby had been dubbed the Grim Reaper. She had been calling herself that for a while and she had remembered the man on the TV called her that at the bar, but she thought it was just a name. Now, the media was calling her that, and she liked it. She liked the fear that surrounded that name. She liked that feeling of terror that would follow her around. She liked how now, no one would see her as some short little girl, but as a ferocious killing machine. Thinking of killing people made her think of Pyrrha and what she did to her. What monster she turned her into. But Ruby had gotten over the anger of Pyrrha, now she was focusing on the next part, elimination. That's when Ruby realized she didn't really have a plan for killing Pyrrha.

Ruby wanted the fight to be public, somewhere where even if Ruby lost, Pyrrha would have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. She wanted everyone to know what she did and how she really felt about her. But she didn't have a location. Her immediate thought was to kill her during an assembly. That way, the whole school would be present for this fight. But that also presented a problem, the staff. The staff would do anything to keep a student alive. So as Ruby was trying to figure a way around this, she heard an airship fly over head, then another one shortly after. That's when she realized why she took the mission in the first place, to train for the Vytal Festival. Then an idea struck her, an idea that would be fool proof, a plan to make sure no just Beacon but everyone in all of Remnant knew what Pyrrha did.

Ruby was going kill Pyrrha during the Vytal Festival. It was perfect. During one of her battles, preferably two vs. two or one on one, she would kill her in front of the whole crowd. All she needed now was a way to get her message out to everyone. She thought for a while on how to do this when she thought of a decent way, she would hack the system. All she needed was a scroll. Hers was dead when she woke up after Pyrrha attacked her and decided it wasn't worth keeping so she left it. Getting a scroll wouldn't be that hard. Mostly likely, she would just steal someone's. So with a plan in mind, Ruby began working out all the flaws and kinks throughout the day was she began walking towards the school.

Meanwhile, at Beacon, the day was hard for the remaining members of Team WBY. After seeing that report the previous night, they all had a hard night and an even harder morning as they tried to move on from that. They were informed that they were "excused" from participating in the Vytal Festival since they only had three team members, but they all knew in reality they were disqualified. They just assumed Ozpin said excused so it wouldn't sound as harsh. Without the worry of needing to fight, Blake and Weiss decided to focus on their studies so they would be ahead of everyone else once class resumed. Yang on the other hand was decided whether or not to drop out. She was lying on her bed in the dorm, thinking about how she always wanted to be a Huntress, but without Ruby around anymore, she thought of it as nothing more than a dream now. Her new plan was to go back to Patch and live and train with Taiyang. It would be hard, but not harder than coming back to her dorm room every night and seeing that suspended bunk bed where Ruby used to sleep. She was on her way to the library to tell Blake and Weiss when the TV in her dorm, which was on but Yang wasn't paying any attention to it, suddenly changed to a news feed with the words "Breaking News" flashing on screen. This got Yang's attention as she turned to look at it. The words on the screen soon flew off screen as someone sitting at a news desk could be seen.

"We interrupt this show to bring you some breaking news! The Inn Keeper that was attack last night has just given his first interview with police and news." Yang heard this and was suddenly more intrigued by this. "Today, around noon, we spoke to the man who had recently gotten out of surgery to put his hand back on. We were told that it was a success and that he will be okay. Here's is what he had to say about the attack:" The feed cut to the man lying in a hospital bed with bandages on his hand. "This girl, who seemed to be no more than 5 foot 3, had rented a room at my inn a couple hours before. She said her name was Fiye but after looking at the picture on the ID, I had reason to believe she was lying." This last line poked Yang's interest through the roof. "So after she left, I had the cleaning ladies search her room under the belief that she was an ID thief. Sure enough, I found 5 ID's, all with pictures that looked similar, in her bag. With my findings, I decided to take action. I searched the town until I found her at the bar and grill. That's when the news story broke about the man that survived death. When I saw the composite sketch, I realized that this was the same woman. So I grabbed her and tried to detain until authorities showed. That's when she attacked me." The Inn Keeper explained. "Can you tell us what she looked like" one of the reporters asked. "5 foot 3, long black hair with red frosted tips. She wore a black corset and skirt with a cape of sorts." Yang couldn't believe her ears. This man almost perfectly described Ruby if she wore all black.

Yang basically sprinted to library where she found Blake and Weiss studying. She explained what she heard and saw and even showed them the news clip on her scroll.

"Yang…" Blake said, with a concerned voice.

"Don't even say it Kitty." Yang looked like she was ready to put Weiss through a wall.

"Yang, listen to yourself. We all want Ruby to be alive, believe me. But the odds of this being Ruby is slim at best. We all heard what Pyrrha said; she was attack and dragged off my Alpha Beowulf's." Blake said, trying to reassure Yang.

"I swear to God, if you say that one more time…" Yang began as her eyes turned red when Weiss suddenly chimed in.

"What is she lied"

"Excuse me?" Both Blake and Yang said in unison.

"What if Pyrrha lied? What if Ruby wasn't killed?" Weiss looked up, a mix of sadness and heavy thinking showed on her face.

"Are you saying Ruby wasn't attacked and Pyrrha just left her and lied about it?" Yang said with a mix of anger and confusion.

"No, I'm saying what if she wasn't killed by the Beowulfs. I don't doubt the fact that she was attacked. That large cut on Pyrrha's arm is enough proof for me. I'm saying that Pyrrha said that she was dragged off, but she never saw her get killed. What if Ruby someone managed to escape and run off?"

Upon hearing this, the other two girls looked at her with wonder. She was right! They all assumed Ruby was dead based on the circumstances but they never questioned it.

"That does make a lot of sense. No one ever saw Ruby die, which mean Pyrrha lied!" Yang's eyes turned red once again and she was ready to go kill Pyrrha for lying to everyone when Blake stepped in front of her.

"Yang, hold on! Pyrrha never said Ruby was dead, remember? She said that all she saw was Ruby being dragged off. We all just assumed she was dead because of what attacked her. Yang, Pyrrha didn't lie to you, Yang."

Yang calmed down after hearing this. She seemed like she was going to collapse from tiredness so Blake caught her. That's when Blake heard Yang crying quietly. "Shhhhh, it's going to be okay. How about this, after the Vytal Festival, we'll all go to that town to see what the Inn Keeper has left to say, alright?" Blake said this to try and calm Yang.

"Okay…" Yang said softly, "can you take me back up to the room? I don't think I'll make it by myself."

"Sure." Blake agreed to this and helped Yang back to their room, leaving Weiss behind.

Unbeknownst to Blake, Weiss had in fact not been studying but had been on her scroll, looking at news stories and any images of The Grim Reaper. _Ruby_ she thought to herself _if you are in fact who these people say you are, please don't anyone you love. Please just leave us be. Let us live._

 **Authors Note:**

 **You there you have it, the update chapter. Now like I said in the Author's Note at the beginning. This is most likely the last chapter of 2016. My dad has the week off of work and he has made some plans that require me to leave the house for pretty much the whole day. So anyways, Merry/Happy whatever you celebrate and happy New Year's.**

 **Finished Writing: December 24, 2016 t 7:46 P.M.**

 **Pages: 6**

 **Words: 2.6k**


	8. Chapter 8: Things are Coming Together

**A/N:**

 **Happy Fucking New Years! That's right, I'm back bitches with a new chapter. I know how you've been waiting for this for almost 2 weeks so I guess I have so explaining to do.**

 **The main reason I haven't been writing is just because I'm lazy. After Christmas, a bunch of things came up like cleaning and tearing everything do from X-mas and a beach trip on New Year's. Once that had all been done and I had free time, I decided instead of writing to play games like Far Cry 3 and some old CoD's on my Xbox 360. But the time has come for a new chapter. I now have a Windows 8 computer so I have some newer programs and it runs a lot faster.**

 **However, there is little time for a celebration. My college classes start December 9 so from that point on until May, chapters will be few and far between. So just a fair warning.**

 **Anyways the chapter. There is a bit of a time skip, however, it is just a few days. And for those of you who say I should have used Weiss, I used Blake because I had some plans for her in later chapter that seem a bit silly know but I'll still use them.**

 **Started Writing: January 4, 2017 at 10:40 P.M.**

Chapter 8: Things are Coming Together

Two days. It was two days until the Vytal Festival and Ruby's plan was coming along nicely. Her current plan was to get aboard an airship by riding on top to get to the stadium, then she would get into the main server room and hack into the system on a scroll she "found". Once hacked into the mainframe, she would use her phone as a speaker to tell everyone what happened to her. Then she would kill Pyrrha in front of all those people. Then she would leave, simple.

As Ruby walked closer to Beacon, she heard more and more airships flying overhead. Tens of thousands of people were coming to this. Men, women, kids, all of whom would watch as Ruby killed Pyrrha. Her blood spilled all over the battlefield. Her friends watch as she pleads for mercy, something that wasn't given to Ruby. All those spectator, who came to see a blood, but not this much. So much blood would be spread around…

 _What the hell is wrong with me_ Ruby questioned herself. It was at this point that Ruby started to question her mental health. She hadn't been the same since the attack and she was beginning to wonder if this killing fever had gotten to her head too much. Sure, she wanted Pyrrha dead, but the graphic nature of which she just described it was a bit much, even for her. She needed something to clear her mind, something calming. It was then Ruby stumbled across the Temple where she picked up that infamous piece that lead to Team RWBY being formed.

Ruby had a walk-through memory lane as she remembered where she first saw the pieces on the pedestals and where Weiss saved her from the Deathstalker. She walked a bit father until she came across the cliff where she and the rest of the team took on the Nevermore. She began to feel something, something she hadn't felt in a long time. A good feeling. She felt happiness again. She was happy to be back in this place where the good times were. Where she was glad to fight alongside Pyrrha. A time when her only worry was how much ammo was in her magazine or when to fire the Crescent Rose to get the most momentum. Ruby realized she was close now, no more than a day's walk from the school. Ruby looked up and saw that it was till early in the day, so she decided to get as close as possible before the sun set. She knew the school was to the south so she began to walk in that direction. But after just 5 minutes, she saw a sight that made that happy feeling fade faster than her semblance could move her.

Ruby had come across the place where she was attacked. The overlook, the bush, everything. She soon found pieces of her Crescent Rose still lying on the ground. She looked over at where she saw her team being attack and saw trees knocked over and ones with large scratch marks on them from the battle. She walked over to where she was stabbed and saw the faintest amount of red on some blades of grass. She walked over to the bush to see where she was laid down to find her. She began to cry when she noticed something. Something shiny had caught her eye laying in the bush. It was her scroll. She was shocked. She assumed someone would have found it by now. She picked it up and tried to turn it on. Dead, as expected. But if she could charge it back up, then she wouldn't need to steal one. Ruby put in one of the empty magazine holders her had on her belt and proceed to the school.

As time went by and the sun began to set, Ruby decided to make her little tree camp like she did every night. So, Ruby picked a nice tall tree, safe from the Grimm and tied a few ropes around branches to keep her stuff from failing. After everything was securely tied up, she decided to climb to the top of the tree. So, she climbed to the top and once there she was greeted by a very familiar site. Beacon

It was all lit up for the Vytal Festival. She could see the arena hovering in the sky all lit up. She could see faint lights coming from the festival grounds. When she was little, Ruby loved it when the Vytal Festival came around. She only went once, when it was Atlas' turn to host it. She went with Taiyang Yang, and Qrow because Qrow had some "friends" that said they could get all four of them in to see the tournament. She remembered all the fun she had on the fairgrounds and the battles that ensued. It was one of the most fun times he even had. She would love to relive that, but due to her current stature and her not having any additional clothes, she couldn't be seen by the public.

However, Ruby thought up a plan to fix both her no clothes and dead phone problem. Later in the night, she would use the cover of darkness to slip on the Beacon campus. She would find her old dorm room and spend the night in one of the nearby trees. Once morning arose and all her teammates left, she would slip into the room, charge her phone, and grab a change of clothes. Most likely, she would try to find Weiss' because she was the closest to her body size.

So, with her plan thought out, she decided to get some sleep. The sun was had just set and Ruby knew she could get six hours of sleep before she had to leave. So, she quickly dozed off, thinking of the good times she and her friends had in this forest, no the bad times.

Meanwhile, Ozpin, who should be worrying about the Vytal Tournament, was more worried about the image that was circulating throughout Beacon now. The image was taken from one of the passing airships as it passed over the temple to the south in the Emerald Forest. It showed what looked like a hooded figure in all black carrying a large scythe walking across the large field. The image also had a caption that read something like _The Grim Reaper is coming to Beacon_ or _The Grim Reaper is participating in the tournament._ This was worrying to Ozpin because Qrow, even though they weren't good friends any more, had recently informed him on a plan to attack the tournament by an unknown assailant. Ironwood also knew about the plan and had a large military force at the Festival just in case of an attack. But if the post was genuine and the Grim Reaper was planning on visiting Beacon, now he would have two forces, wishing to do harm to the people here. And if they joined forces, then they could probably never be stopped. Ozpin stayed awake, thinking of ways he could stop this until he fell asleep at his desk.

Ruby woke around 1:30 in the early morning hours of the day. She climbed the tree she was in to see if there was any activity. They only activity came from faint sounds of partying in the City of Vale bars. She knew it was her time to act. She quickly gathered her things and left the tree. She was basically running towards Beacon, she arrived at the cliffs in a matter of minutes and used her semblance to quickly get over them. Now she could see all of Beacon. It was beautiful, it always would be. But she was not in the mood for sightseeing. She had a mission. She remembered what dorm she had and where it was located, now all she had to do was find the window. Ruby moved quickly for she was still wearing all her dark clothing, if anyone saw her, the mission would be over. Ruby used bushes and large shrubs for cover. Luckily, with the all the students in high gear training, everyone was tired and no one was walking around. Ruby still was careful, not wanting to be seen by someone looking out their window.

Ruby soon found the building her dorm was in and quickly began counting. She knew she was 2 from the corner and about 7 stories up. Using that knowledge, she found the window she thought was correct, so she climbed the tree closest to the building. The curtains were closed but she knew it was her room because of the large, diagonal cut in the curtain that was sloppily repaired with tape. She was home. Ruby began to feel both happiness and sadness. She was happy that she was finally close to her friends again but sad that she could never interact with them. She began to cry and sob as quietly as she could so she wouldn't wake anyone, but it failed

"Weiss, you hear that" a voice soon came from the room that made Ruby stop crying.

"The only thing I hear is you waking me up, Blake! It's 2 in the morning." Weiss snapped back.

"I thought I heard someone crying coming from outside." Blake said.

"Blake, we are on the seventh floor. No one is crying outside." Weiss responded. still angry from being woken up.

Just then, both heard a branch snap and what sounded like someone trying not to fall.

Meanwhile, outside, the branch Ruby was standing on had given out and broke, leaving Ruby with no foothold anymore. She had used her scythe to grab onto the ledge just by the windows but knew it wouldn't hold for long. She quickly needed to find a way out of this. She decided to retract her weapon and use that as momentum to land on the ledge. So, with the press out of button, the gun retracted and Ruby used that momentum to land on the ledge.

Meanwhile, back in the dorm room, Weiss, Blake, and Yang who had awoken to the sounds of the other two arguing heard all of this. The sound of a blade hitting concrete, a weapon retracting, and the sounds of boots landing on the ledge. But this time, all three of them had grabbed their weapons, believing it was a peeping tom. They admired his determination for being up so high, but were ready to kill him for it. Blake rechambered her Gambol Shroud and Yang slowly pulled open the curtain and then quickly punched open the window. Weiss and Blake then quickly looked both ways, but were surprised to see nothing. They looked in all directions but saw no one. At his point, Yang too had poked her head out the window and she too saw no one. Once back inside with the window closed and locked and the curtains closed they pondered what they had just heard.

"Okay, we all heard that, right?" Weiss asked

"Yeah." Blake and Yang responded

"Okay, if we all heard it coming from right outside are window, then why was no one there?" Weiss asked again.

"You're guess is as good as mine, Ice Queen." Yang responded.

As the three-continued pondering, on the roof Ruby sat, out of breath. She had just narrowly escaped being spotted. She decided that sleeping in that tree might be too risky and decided to sleep on the roof. She knew Jaune and Pyrrha sometimes came up to the roof to train so she put her stuff by the door in case someone tried to get on the roof and jammed her scythe through the handle to make extra sure. To make sure no one would see her, she slept behind one of the AC units, away from prying eyes. Tomorrow, she would begin to enact her plan of revenge.

Morning came and the three girls were still confused on what had happened that night. They had all heard the commotion outside their window yet, there was no one there. They couldn't dismiss it as a dream because there was a branch on the ground below the window. Blake and Yang decided that it was one sneaky peeping tom that had gotten away and dismissed it and went about their day. Weiss on the other hand decided to investigate some more. When she looked more closely at the ledge, she found a small gash in the side, like something a large weapon could make, like a scythe. Weiss concluded that someone had tried to break into their dorm but failed. She called Ozpin to report the incident and he said he would have more security patrolling at night.

Ruby meanwhile had just woken up herself and her plan was about to commence. During her night on the roof, she decided she would taught Pyrrha throughout the day, making her more and more paranoid while she would laugh from a distance.

 _This is going to be fun_ Ruby thought as she planned the little pranks for Pyrrha. _She is going to become so paranoid that she will be a burden to her team and maybe even embarrass herself on the battlefield._ Ruby giggled as she thought of this. Her new plan was to make sure that Pyrrha never felt safe for the rest of her life, no matter how long it will last.

 **Author Note**

 **So yeah, that was a chapter. I might write the next one before the ninth because I have been planning these chapter since the beginning so I know what to write about. Ruby's plan is now in motion and, like the fuck train, it has no breaks. Woo-woo.**

 **I plan to write three more chapter, so about 11 chapters in total for this fanfic. I am beginning to write a new dark fanfic so be prepared for that. Also, no, I did not sit at my computer for nearly 24 hours writing. I took some break for food, sleep and games along the way. I mainly did this because at certain points I wasn't thinking clearly and I didn't want to write garbage so I took a break.**

 **Finished Writing: January 5, 2017 at 8:40 P.M.**

 **Pages: 5**

 **Words: 2.6k**


	9. Chapter 9: An Expected Suprise

**A/N:**

 **Like I said in the last chapter, I knew I was going to post a chapter before the ninth, which is Monday. But this will probably be the last chapter before the ninth and classes are going to start so chapter will be delayed. But you only must look forward to 2 more chapters after this one. So, there is something to.**

 **There will no longer be any time skips because that would be ridiculous, and for the fights in the Vytal tournament, I'm going to use the canon fights in the show. And they won't be mentioned all that much just briefly. So, strap in, Ruby's gonna have some fun.**

 **Began Writing: January 7, 2017 at 4:20 P.M. (Blaze it)**

As Ruby sat on the roof, waiting for everyone to go to breakfast, we went through all the pranks she planned to pull on Pyrrha to make her uneasy. First leave a couple of notes lying around with very cryptic messages, then, once her scroll, is charged, maybe a few calls from Ruby to Pyrrha to really freak her out. Then, if Ruby becomes brave enough, a visit from Ruby's ghosts while she is sleeping. Oh, the fun she was going to have. Finally, once she is weakened and paranoid, BOOM, kill her in front of thousands of people.

Ruby grabbed all her stuff and peered into Team JNPR's dorm from the outside through their window. Their room was more organized than her room. There were no bunk beds name up of books and rope hung from the ceiling. There wasn't stuff all over the floor and posters hanging sloppily on the wall. They cared about how their room looked, which made Ruby a bit jealous.

But it didn't really matter. Ruby wasn't there for interior design lessons, she was there from revenge. And so, as she looked around, she didn't see anyone. The bathroom door was open so she could see that no one was inside and all the beds were made and empty, so Ruby concluded it was empty. But when she tried the window, it was locked. She couldn't get in any other way without someone hearing so she came up with a new way.

Quickly, she darted across the roof to the other side where her dorm room was and looked inside. She saw Yang brushing her hair in the bathroom. Ruby never understood why she spent so much time messing with her hair, only for it to get messy during the fight. But anyways, Ruby tapped on the window using her scythe to get Yang's attention.

Meanwhile while Yang was brushing her hair, she still felt uneasy about the situation that happened the previous night. The sole idea that someone was peeping on them on the seventh floor made her feel like she was never safe. Then, a tap at the window spun her around faster than Ruby can move with her semblance. She caught the glimpse of something quickly darting up above the window. Yang ran as fast as she could to the window to see if she could see it, but like the night before, nothing. Yang, now feeling even more uneasy, closed the window, finished brushing her hair quickly, and left the dorm.

Unbeknownst to Yang, Ruby had slipped the tip of her scythe in between the window and the frame, not enough to notice it, but enough to make sure it wouldn't close fully. Once Yang had left the room, Ruby slipped in and was hit with a sense of nostalgia. Her old bed, her old gaming counsel. Everything felt foreign to her, like it was all new again. But Ruby had no time to waste. Quickly, she checked down the hall to make sure no one was there. Once clear, she darted into JNOR's dorm room. Luckily, it was open because Jaune kept forgetting to lock it. Once inside the dorm, she looked for clues that might lead her to Pyrrha's bed. It soon became apparent that the one kept the cleanest and the one that had her shield underneath it was hers. So, Ruby left a nice little note for Pyrrha labeled "To: Pyrrha" with it little heart next to it. Then she ran back over to her dorm room to charge her scroll.

Meanwhile, in the mess hall, all of Team JNPR and WBY were eating together. Nora, as always, had a plate full on pancakes. Jaune and Ren had some eggs and Pyrrha had some toast with jam and honey on it. Weiss too had eggs with toast, Yang was trying to beat Nora in who can eat the most pancakes in a minute, and Blake just stuck with a glass of OJ. After the contest, which Nora always won, Weiss began talking about the incident that happened the previous night.

"So, some guy was peeping on us last night." Weiss said in a monotone voice.

Team JNPR looked at her with confusion and amazement. "You mean, someone was looking through the peep hole in the door?" Jaune asked.

"No idiot, someone was outside our room, like outside in a tree. And you can't do that, can you?" Weiss questioned Jaune, deciding whether she should kill him or not, based on his answer.

"But with our rooms being on the seventh floor, how could anyone be that stubborn? Why not just stick with the first two floors?" Pyrrha asked with a bit on confusion and worry.

"We don't know. All we know is that they tree branch they were standing on broke and they tried to grasp onto the ledge and fell." Blake responded, trying to explain things.

"But even a trained Huntsmen would have trouble surviving that fall uninjured, let alone unscathed. Are you sure you didn't just hear a small animal?" Ren asked.

"Nope. That branch was too big for a small animal to jump onto it and break it. It had to be a human or faunus. We were wondering if you guys saw or heard anything last night." Yang said.

"Nope. Sorry. Can't say we did." Jaune replied.

"Damn. Then are only question is who would do this. The school is not open for non-huntsmen and huntresses and we didn't notice anyone following us or being suspicious yesterday." Weiss said, trying to figure it out

"Maybe it was Ruby." Nora said, nonchalantly. But at the mention of her name, everyone looked at her like she was crazy. "Maybe Ruby survived the attack and was trying to get back in but fell."

Only wondrous looks of confusion, unbelievableness, and anger from Yang were given to Nora. She looked back with a look of confusion that read something like 'why are you guys looking at me'. Weiss broke the silence.

"…what did you say..." Weiss said to Nora.

"I'm saying that we never found a body or her scroll. What if she survived, but didn't have a way to call us and was trying to get into your room but fell and injured herself again? Maybe she's still out there trying to get back to us." Nora said, sounding a bit uneasy at the end, like she was tearing up

Yang looked like she was about to kill Nora. "Listen here, you little time bomb. Ruby is dead. Like never coming back dead. So, don't EVER talk like she is still alive, got it?!" Yang's eyes turned red from both anger and tears forming.

Yang, calm down. Nora, don't say things like that. It really upsets some people." Jaune said, trying to be the voice of reason

"Sorry, I just miss her, okay." Nora said. She had a look no one had ever really seen before. A look of regret and sadness was on her face. Upon seeing this, Yang ran over to her and hugged.

"I'm sorry, Nora. I miss her too." The two sat quietly, holding each other. Pyrrha stood up and began to walk away.

"Pyrrha, where are you going?" Jaune asked

"Back to our dorm room. I don't want to see Nora or Yang like this." Pyrrha replies, her too sounding like she was on the verge of tears.

"Alright. See you back at the dorm." Jaune replied

A moment later, Blake whispered to Weiss: "Weiss I'm gonna head back to our dorm. Seeing Yang like this is too much."

"Alright." Weiss whispered back. And with that, Blake too was on her way back to her dorm.

Pyrrha reached her dorm and opened the unlocked door. The real reason she left was because she hated how much everyone cared about Ruby. She thought that with her gone, she would soon be forgotten. But no, she was talked about even more now. "Remember when Ruby did that" or "Wasn't it funny when Ruby did this" was all she heard over the last two month. She had grown up being at the center, now she had been dethroned. At first, she kinda liked not being at the center of attention. Now, that's what all she wanted. Pyrrha began to pace around the room before sitting down. It was only when she heard the crinkle of paper that she noticed the note. She grabbed it and on the front, it read "To: Pyrrha" with a little heart. _Oh, god_ she thought _This must be the secret admirer that Team WBY was talking about. Lovely, now he is after me._ But when Pyrrha opened the note, she screamed in fear and ran from her dorm. Blake, who was about to go inside her dorm, heard this and was soon met with a screaming Pyrrha in her face.

"Jesus Pyrrha, what's wrong?!" Blake looked worried.

"Open your door, now." Pyrrha said in a demanding voice.

"What, why?" Blake said

"Open it! Now!" Pyrrha now sounded scared for her life.

With that, Blake opened that door to the dorm room. After they were both inside, Pyrrha slammed the door shut and locked it.

"Okay, we're inside. Now what is this all abo…"

"I found this on my bed." Pyrrha slammed the note into Blake's chest. Blake took a step back and looked at the note. "A love letter, really?" Blake said, sounding a bit angry.

"Read what's on the inside." Pyrrha said, sounding concerned.

Reluctantly, Blake read the what note said and when she was finished, just dropped the paper at her feet. "No…...no….no no no no no no…"

The note read:

 **Dear Pyrrha,**

 **Next time you try to kill someone, aim a bit higher, okay. Also, your spear could use some sharpening.**

 **Love, Rubes**

Below the note was a crudely drawn image of Pyrrha standing over Ruby stabbing her in the chest, the same way she did it.

"Pyrrha, are you sure this note is real and not just some prank?" Blake questioned, sounding worried and confused.

"How the HELL would it be a prank, Blake?! Only you and I know about this. Plus, only Ruby would know how I stabbed her." Pyrrha said, angry and concerned.

"Fuck, oh fuck, fucking shit." Blake began pacing.

"Why are you worried? You aren't the one who stabbed her!" Pyrrha yelled at Blake.

"Yeah, but I told Yang everything was going to be okay I told her Ruby was going to be okay. I basically killed Yang!" Blake said

"Alright, umm, okay. If this is Ruby, trying to kill you, then you need to outsmart her. Lead her into a trap. Kill her like you were supposed to. I'll help you." Blake said

"Fine." Pyrrha said. And with that Pyrrha and Blake left the room

Meanwhile, Ruby had decided to take a nice hot shower. It had been so long since she had had a nice hot shower. She put her bags in the bathroom and her scythe under her blanket because it wouldn't fit in the small bathroom comfortably.

Ruby was in the middle of the shower when she heard the door open suddenly and then slam. Ruby quickly turned off the water and listened through the door.

"I found this on my bed."She heard Pyrrha say. Ruby grinned from ear to ear upon hearing this. _So Pyrrha found the note. But who is she talking to._

"Pyrrha, are you sure this note is real and not just some prank?" a mystery person asked Pyrrha. _Who is that, they sound familiar…_ Ruby had forgotten what her friends sounded like in her time away.

"How the HELL would it be a prank, Blake?! Only you and I know about this." Upon hearing this, Ruby's grinned dropped into a silent gasp. _No, not Blake. Why would Blake know about this? The only way to know is if she was in on it. Please, oh God, don' let Blake be in on this._ Ruby pleaded with herself.

"Why are you worried? You aren't the one who stabbed her!" "Yeah, but I told Yang everything was going to be okay I told her Ruby was going to be okay. I basically killed Yang!". Ruby couldn't believe what she was hearing. Not only did Blake know about this, she helped Pyrrha get away with it. _She told Yang not to worry_. _She lied to her. I trusted her._ Ruby wanted to scream but if she did she would be found out, so she remained quiet.

"Alright, umm, okay. If this is Ruby, trying to kill you, then you need to outsmart her. Lead her into a trap. Kill her like you were supposed to. I'll help you." Blake said. Ruby heard then leave but she didn't move from where she was. _Blake, my friend, my teammate, is helping this monster. She needs to die with her._ Ruby began to think on how to kill Blake when the door opened again.

"Bllaaake?" A new voice, this one sounded even more familiar. Like someone who cared for me.

"Blake? It's Weiss. Are you in the bathroom?" Weiss said.

 _Holy shit, Weiss!_ Ruby thought, at first this thought was happy, then not so much as she realized she was coming towards the bathroom. Ruby realized that there was no escape. If Weiss found out…

"Blake? Are you oka…" A crinkle beneath her feet stopped her in her tracks. "What's this? A love note. Awww, it's to Pyrrha. I wonder who it's from?" She began to open the note.

Ruby heard this and began to act fast. Weiss was not to know what was on that note. Ruby, it her no-so-smart quick thinking banged her head against the door in an attempt to stop her from looking at it.

Weiss looked up from the note right as she was about to read who it was from. "Blake, are you alright? What's wrong?" Weiss began to wiggle the door knob in an attempt to open the door.

 _Alright, maybe that wasn't that smartest idea_ Ruby thought to herself _Now how do I get out of here._ Ruby began thinking of ways to escape from darting out the window to hiding behind the door.

"Blake, seriously? Are you hurt? Do I need to call the nurse? If you don't respond. I'm gonna force my way in."

Just then, Ruby came up with idea, a stupid one, but maybe, just smart enough to get Weiss away from the door. Ruby grabbed her scroll, which had been charging and was almost fully charged, and texted Weiss. Ruby hoped that if Weiss received that message, that she would go tell Yang and leave her be.

Weiss had begun knocking intently to try to get to Blake who she thought was in the bathroom when her scroll buzzed. "Blake really, why couldn't you just tell me…" Weiss looked at her scroll with a mix of both fear, surprise, and confusion. On her scroll was a message from Ruby that had only three words that read "Help me, Beowulfs". Ruby heard Weiss let out a small scream and Ruby from the room. Ruby took this time to sprint from the bathroom, lock the door, get dressed, grab her stuff and leave. Ruby took off as fast as her semblance could carry her. She soon was on the outskirts of Beacon on top of one of the buildings. _That was too fucking close._ Ruby thought. _I need to be more careful if I'm going to stay here._

Meanwhile, Weiss had sprinted down the hall to try and find Yang. Luckily, she was on her way up to the dorm when Weiss literally ran into her. Yang saw the look on Weiss' face and began to question her.

"Whoa Weiss, what's wrong? You seem like you've seen a ghost." Yang said, trying to calm her down.

"Yang, I didn't see a ghost, I got a text from one." Weiss then showed her the text from Ruby. Yang's looked shocked.

"Weiss, when did you get this?" Yang said, calmly but also urgently.

"Just now. Blake had locked herself in the bathroom and when I tried to get her out, I got the text." Weiss explained

"Does anyone know Ruby's scroll number? Maybe it's a sick prank." Yang said, trying to rationalize it.

"Impossible. It's is from the IDM feature. Only someone with Ruby's scroll would appear as Ruby. And remember, we never found her scroll."

"Yeah, we didn't, but maybe someone else did. Can you find out where the message was sent from?" Said Yang

"Uhh, yeah. Hold on." Weiss used the feature installed on every scroll. It could trace any message from anyone that has sent you a message in the last 24 hours. It could even track where you have been down to a room number. When Weiss saw where it was sent from, she couldn't believe it. "No, this doesn't make sense."

"What is it?" Questioned Yang.

"It was sent from the bathroom in our dorm." Weiss said, in shock.

"Then Blake sent it, hold on." Yang called Blake, who answered quickly.

"Yang, what's wrong?" Blake questioned through the phone.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you?! Why would you do that?!" Yang yelled at Blake

"Woah, do what?" Blake said in a defending voice

"You know exactly what you did. You fucking sent a message to Weiss from Ruby's scroll asking for help from Beowulfs! Why would you do such a thing?!" Yang said, a mix of sadness and angry in her voice.

"Weiss got a message from Ruby, from her scroll?! Holy shit, where was the message sent from, maybe we can find her." Blake sounded happy.

"It was sent from the bathroom in our dorm that you were hiding from Weiss in, you fucking monster!" Yang was ready to kill Blake.

"What are you talking about? I was never in the bathroom and Weiss never came up to the room." Blake said

Upon hearing this, Weiss began to track where Blake had been in the last 15 minutes.

"Don't play stupid with me Blake! Weiss said you locked yourself in the bathroom and…"

"Yang." Weiss said, interrupting her. "She's right. Using the tracker, I can see me and Blake were never in the dorm room at the same time. Blake didn't send that message.

"Let me see." Yang grabbed the phone from Weiss and looked on in amazement. Per the paths of the phones on the tracker, Weiss entered the dorm right after Blake left. Which proves without a doubt that Blake didn't send that message. "Look at where Team JNPR was at that time." Weiss quickly plugged all of Team JNPR's scroll ID's into the tracker and sure enough most of them hadn't even left he mess hall, aside from Pyrrha.

"So, if, Blake or Team JNPR didn't send that message, then who did"

 **Author's Note**

 **But that cliffhanger doe.**

 **So, Ruby, trying to get away from Weiss, just made herself known to all of team WBY. Luckily, Ruby is going to be more smart in the coming chapters, which only two are left. I hope you guys love reading this as much as I love writing it. This has been fun but with only 2 chapters left, the series in winding down. Well not really. The fun is about to begin. The next chapter will be the start of the Vytal Festival and the beginning of Ruby's plan to kill Pyrrha. Next chapter will be delayed because of college classes so far warning.**

 **Finished Writing: January 8, 2017 at 2:15 A.M.**

 **Pages: 7**

 **Words: 3.4k**


	10. Chapter 10: Final Preparations

**A/N:**

 **So, a few things before we get into the story. One, I really didn't expect to get another chapter out this soon. But I realized that my classes were taking it easy because of the three-day weekend ahead, so I didn't get that much homework. Two, my schedule for college allows me a long time in between classes on Tuesday and Thursday so if I was going to write a chapter during school. Three, I already have FOUR fanfics planned after I finish this in THREE different stories. NO, they stories won't be in any way connected unless I say so. They each have their own universe. I might start publishing them either right before or after I finish this one so be on the lookout for that. Anyways, the story at hand.**

 **The chapter is going to be the start of the Vytal Festival. I'm lazy and I'm going to keep the fights canon to the story so I don't have to think up names for people and teams. And by think up I mean randomly generate off a website, but that still took me 20 minutes with Team SAFR for chapter 7. Anyways, I already have the big reveal for chapter 11 planned for when Ruby reveals herself in front of all those people during the Vytal Festival. This chapter is going to go over minor details that some of you in the reviews have expressed concerns about.**

 **Speaking of reviews, yes, I do read all of them. But if I don't have to, I won't reply. I'll just address it in the next chapter in some form. I have replied to a few reviews because I felt like I needed to address that and it would be awkward or weird to address in the story. But enough talk. Let's begin**

 **Starting Writing: January 13, 2017 at 11:31 P.M.**

"Welcome to the Vytal Festival Tournament!" a voice over the loudspeakers in the stadium said.

"Thank you, Professor Port for that glorious intro." Another voice came over the loudspeakers as people began filing into the stadium, awaiting the first battle.

"Right back at you, Professor Oobleck." Port said with a chuckle.

"It's Dr. Oobleck, and welcome again to the Vytal Festival Tournament. Now if it's your first time watching, let us break down the rules for you. The tournament is divided into three distinctive rounds: Teams, Doubles, and Singles. Age and school year do not matter because the only attribute being tested is skill. The winners of the Teams round will elect two teammates to go onto the Doubles round, and the winners of that will elect one person to go on to the Singles round. Then, the final four singles will go onto fight each other bracket style for a chance to bring victory to their kingdom."

"Correct, but before we begin today's first fight between Team JNPR of Beacon and Team BRNZ of Shade, we would like everyone to take a moment for silence. As some of you may know, a few months ago, we lost a talented young student named Ruby Rose. She was killed by a large group of Beowulf's when they overran her teammate in the Emerald Forest. She was the youngest student to ever attend any academy in Remnant at only 15, but was also one of the smartest and most talented. She will be forever missed." Port finished off his little speech and the whole stadium went quiet for about 10 seconds until he came over the loudspeakers again to thank everyone.

Meanwhile backstage, Team JNPR was preparing for their fight. They too had heard the announcement and they all feel silent physically. But Pyrrha was screaming mentally the while time. _Why?! Why do they have to dedicate this tournament to her? She died because she was naïve. Well, I mean, I also killed her but still! I thought that maybe after he died people would stop talking about her, but no! They talked about her more. Maybe after this tournament is over it will finally die down._ Pyrrha had grown to hate Ruby more since she killed her. At first, she felt kind of bad about what she did, but now she no longer felt that way. In fact, we felt proud that she was the one that took down the prodigal child. However, this is something we wouldn't gloat about. Well, maybe to the right people. Pyrrha snapped out of her trance when she heard Jaune talking.

"Alright, we all know the plan, right?" Jaune said while his team gathered around.

"Uhhhh, sure." Pyrrha said.

"Sweet! Now let's go get them!" Jaune said as he began to walk triumphally away while his friends stay back.

"We have a plan?" Questioned Nora.

"Oh no. I just told him that to make him happy. Just wing it." Pyrrha replied and then turned to follow Jaune. Nora and Ren gave each other a look of worry but decided that it was for the better and followed Jaune as well.

Meanwhile, Ruby was on the roof of the dorms watching the tournament on her scroll. She had gotten it fully charged and decided to watch the tournament. She wanted to see how Pyrrha had improved over the time she was gone. But mainly it was to see what kind of protection and security that stadium had in place. She noticed the high level of military force and wondered what was going on but decided that this wasn't her fight. Yet. She knew that if she was spotted, the military would probably be the ones that would engage her so she had to be careful.

You see, once Ruby had gotten her scroll charged the first thing she did was look up any news about her. She saw a lot of articles from when she attacked that Inn Keeper but recently she hadn't seen any news, mainly because she had gone into hiding. However, she did find one new article, dating to only two days ago, from the biggest news site in Vale. They article was about security for the Vytal Festival and it had a small section about the Grim Reaper. There was a short video attached where a new reporter was talking to General Ironwood. Ruby plugged in some headphones that she "borrowed" from Blake after everyone had left to watch JNPR fight and clicked on the video.

"So, Gen. Ironwood, by now, I can assume you've heard the stories of The Grim Reaper." The reported started off with.

"That is correct, yes." Ironwood responded.

"In case she does attack the festival, what security measures are in place?" the reported said.

"Well, let me make this clear. If the Grim Reaper does attack, me and my men will not hesitate to shoot to kill. In fact, I would like to make an offer. I have talked to the RHA about this and we have come to an agreement. If you know or have any ideas where this individual might be, we are offering at 50,000 Lien reward for her location. We need this individual captured or killed. We hope this person will come to their senses and turn themselves in before they harm anyone else. But if you decided to attack the Festival, I will assure you, you won't make it far." Ironwood finished his monologue.

"Uh, well, then. I guess we have no further questions. Thank you, General Ironwood." The reporter seemed a bit thrown off by this statement from the general.

"The pleasure is all mine." Ironwood gave a friendly smile and the video ended.

 _So, there is now a reward for my head?_ Ruby pondered to herself. _Took them long enough. This means now I must be extra careful around people. Now people are going to be suspicious of people in hood._ Ruby had intended to wear a hood with a change of clothes so no one would suspect her. But now that plan was shot because if anyone suddenly pulled off her hood and saw who she really was, then her whole plan for revenge would be blown.

Ruby concluded that maybe going into town isn't that good of an idea so she decided to spend all her time trying to figure out she was going to make this plan to kill Pyrrha in front of everyone work. She already decided to hack into the system to gain access to communications and whatnot, but getting close enough to do that would require her to get into the stadium. She decided to do this that night so she wouldn't have to worry about being spotted by a random civilian.

Ruby realized that the fight between JNPR and BRNZ was still going on and switched over to that to see what was going on. She switched over right in time to see that Nora semblance involved electricity. _I guess that makes sense_ Ruby thought _She is always hyperactive, like she always has 20,000 volts going through her._ Ruby sat and watch the rest of the fight up in till Jaune started arguing with the rest of his team during the fight. This made Ruby laugh because she had missed Jaune awkwardness and his unawareness of his surroundings. Ruby snapped back to the fight when Nora smashed the team into the wall and JNPR won. This gave Ruby an incredible idea to toy with Pyrrha some more. Ruby quickly switched over the phone app and decided to give Pyrrha a "congratulatory call" for winning.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha and the rest of the team was waving to the fans as they cheered on. They started to head backstage to the locker rooms to change. They were talking the whole time, mainly about not having a plan and Jaune's embarrassing moment when Pyrrha scroll went off.

"Pyrrha, who's calling you?" Jaune asked.

"Probably Weiss, Blake, or Yang to congratulate us." Pyrrha said, reaching for the phone.

"Well put in on speaker so we call all hear!" Nora said, enthusiastically, the high voltage still going through her body.

Pyrrha froze when she saw who the call was from.

"Pyrrha is everything okay?" Ren asked when he saw her face change.

"It's…. it's…Ruby" Pyrrha finally chocked out. The rest of her look at her wonder. "Look…" Pyrrha showed them the name on the screen. All of them looked terrified, yet curious. They all heard what had happened to Weiss in the dorm the previous day and really didn't believe them, but now…

"Answer it." Nora said.

Pyrrha reluctantly swiped the screen to answer the call. A voice quickly came through the scroll.

"Hey, Pyrrha. Saw the whole fight. Pretty good. Too bad the next one will be your last." The voice sounded happy upon saying this.

"Who is this?!" Pyrrha said in response but the call was over by then. The four just looked at the phone in wonder.

"Ren, get Weiss, Blake, and Yang on the phone tell them about this. Pyrrha, can you save the call?" Pyrrha nodded. "Alright, Nora, call Ozpin. Tell him about this. Quickly!" Jaune barked these orders while also thinking to himself. _Ruby, if that was you, what do you mean by last fight?_

Meanwhile, Ruby was pretty happy with herself. She had heard was Pyrrha said and the tone she used and she could tell she was scared. She could tell she was on edge and worried for her life. Ruby decided to just lay low until dark so she could slip away.

Night had fallen on Beacon. Since the call around 10 hours ago, Team SSSN had fought Team NDGO and had one. But the main story was the call and by now, everyone had heard about it and was still talking about it like it just happened. A few students had overheard Weiss talking to Ren about the call from Ruby and the news spread like wildfire through the school. By the time team JNPR had reached their dorm, everyone in the school had heard about it. They slipped into their dorm where Weiss, Blake, and Yang were already waiting, along with Ozpin. They had decided to meet their because it was the most private place they could talk about it.

"Pyrrha, can you play the call for all of us to hear." Ozpin said. Pyrrha played the call for all of them hear. Once the call had ended, Yang was the first to speak.

"It's her, it had to be her! My little sister is alive!" Yang was beyond ecstatic.

"Miss Xiao Long, please calm down." Ozpin said, trying to calm her down.

"No!" Yang's eyes were now red with anger. "No telling me she isn't alive! There have been so many reports of some like matching his description exactly ever since she went missing! There is no way this is all just a coincidence. My little sister is alive and well." Yang was almost yelling and tears were beginning to form in her eyes.

"Miss Xiao Long, I wasn't going to deny you that." Ozpin said

"You…you weren't?" Yang calmed down once she heard Ozpin side with her.

"No, I do have my suspicions that she is still alive. However, I do also believe that the girl that went on that mission isn't the same one that called Pyrrha." Ozpin said

"What do you mean by that?" Yang questioned.

"Well, the Ruby Rose that you remember, if she is alive, won't be the Ruby Rose you remember. She has been out in the wilderness for too many months and has no doubt seen things no girl of her or even your age should ever see. She will have changed, most likely for the worst. She might even be hostile towards you." Ozpin continued. By now, Yang was crying and Blake was comforting her. Ozpin turned to face Pyrrha. "However, in the call, Ruby did state that Pyrrha's next fight would be her last, which is why, Ms. Nikos, I am going to ask you this one more time:" Pyrrha looked at him with a look of worry of what he might ask. "Did you or did you not have anything to do with the disappearance of young Miss Rose since you were the last one to see her alive?" Ozpin sounded demanding.

Pyrrha looked at him with a looked at him, her demeaner changed to a look of disgust like why would he asking me this again. "No. I did not have anything to do with Ruby's disappearance. If anything, I tried to stop her from disappearing." Pyrrha said, confidentially.

"Alright, then if there are no more further questions, I'll be leaving." Ozpin said in a final statement. The room was silent so Ozpin began to leave.

"Professor Ozpin?" Weiss finally spoke up, making Ozpin turn to face her. "If the Grim Reaper is Ruby, are you going have Ironwood kill her?" Weiss had a worried look on her face.

"If the need arises, yes." And with that, Ozpin left the room. Meanwhile, Ruby had been listening in on the conversation from outside. She had heard everything had mixed emotions. She felt happy that Pyrrha was on edge but not that all her other friends were as well. She was sad, seeing Yang in the state she was in, just wanting to go and hug her and make her feel better. But she was mostly angry. Angry that they felt she was a danger to anyone that surrounded her. Angry that Pyrrha was blatantly lying to everyone. And angry that Ozpin would have her put down. Ruby just wanted to show all of them she meant business. So, she took off towards the stadium. Mostly all the airships were grounded at this point but a few were still operational. Ruby darted over the heliport and began surveying the area for security. It was light, a few armed guards pacing back and forth but they were spread apart just enough to make a quick run to an airship without being seen. So, Ruby began looking for an airship getting ready to take off. She quickly found one and lucky for her, it was the closest one to her.

So, when the guards turned their backs, she used her semblance to get on top of the airship. She wasn't seen and the airship quickly took off, headed towards the stadium. The flight was short and the airship soon landed at one of the loading bays. Ruby decided it was better to leave sooner rather than later and as soon as the airship came to a stop, she darted to the nearest cover. Once again, she was lucky not seen and began looking for the main control room to hack into.

I didn't take too long to find the room labeled **Control Room**. The door was locked but it only took a bit of force and a well-placed kick to force the door open. Ruby, using her scroll, quickly plugged into the mainframe but was surprised by what see saw.

 _That's odd,_ Ruby thought, _there is already another system in place. It doesn't seem to be there but it seems like no one has bothered to remove it. Either they don't care or the people here are the dumbest people on the planet._ Ruby tried hacking into that new system but it had a nice firewall in place. It was at this point that ruby was glad she had taken that "computer programming" class back at Signal that was really a hacking class instead of weightlifting, a class that seemed to be a requirement to fight with her weapon but as Ruby soon found out, to use her Crescent Rose, all you really need to do was keep it moving and it felt light. It had been a long time since that class but Ruby remembered a few things, one of them being how to bypass a firewall. Ruby made quick work of the firewall and soon was into the mainframe of the new system.

She saw that she had full control over everything from the "random" team generator to what environment the fights would take place in. Ruby realized that only someone with really bad intentions would need this much control, so she deleted those files immediately. Next, she saw she had control over the monitors and the loudspeakers. Ruby decided that she needed these, so she left them alone. Ruby then saw an icon of a chess piece surrounded by a red background. She didn't like the image so she changed it to a skull with a scythe and a black background. Ruby then realized that when she did walk out on stage that soldiers from every entrance would try to stop her, so she put a system in place that at the tap of a button, she could close all the doors to the stadium floor and even make the force field stretch to the ground, preventing anyone from entering. Ruby was having a little giggle at what awaited Pyrrha the next day. Ruby's final plan was to make sure that whoever put this system in place couldn't go through and change what she had done, so she cloned her system, put it on a completed separate network that only see could access, moved the old hacked system to another network and made the only system only have one thing in it: A note that said **Thanks for the free system hacks, bitches! Love, The Grim Reaper.** It also had the image Ruby made below that.Ruby decided that her work was done and decided to pay Blake a little visit. She wasn't going to kill her, but she wanted her to know that she was coming for her next.

Meanwhile in Cinder's dorm, Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury were going over the fights for the next day.

"Pyrrha Nikos and Nora Valkyrie are going up against Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias." Emerald read off the schedule for fights that was just posted on the Vytal Festival Tournament page.

"Alight then, I want a cityscape with a few electrical lines for the Nora girl a lot of metal for the Nikos girl." Cinder said, in her seductively demanding tone.

"You got it boss." Mercury said, as he sat on the computer, ready to enter that into the "random biome generator". But instead of biomes, he was faced with something else. "Uh, Cinder, you might want to see this."

"I swear if it's another porn ad, I will kill you, Mercury." Cinder and Emerald looked at the screen and saw the last thing they were expecting. The only thing on the screen was some text that read **Thanks for the free system hacks, bitches! Love, The Grim Reaper** with an image of a Reaper below it. "All the systems are down and the firewalls to try to get into the other network would take weeks to crack."

Cinder looked like she was ready to kill someone. "So, you're telling me that someone hacked our system, deleted our files, and gave us no chance to fix it."

"Yes" Mercury said.

"This is unbelievable. Months of hard work and energy, wasted." Cinder was about to set something on fire when Emerald spoke up.

"If this is the real Grim Reaper, the one that kills, then maybe we can use this for our plans." Emerald said.

"Emerald, she kills. And if she kills someone during the tournament, then all our plans are shot." Cinder was fuming at this point.

"Fine, let's just see what happens tomorrow. Maybe she will die before she does any harm to anyone." Mercury became the voice of reason.

"Fine. Whatever." Cinder said. And with that they all went to see.

By now all of Beacon was asleep. Including all everyone from the WBY dorm. Ruby had been watching them for some time, waiting until they were all in a deep sleep. Ruby then sneakily climbed in through the window, making sure not to wake anyone. Once Ruby was sure that no one was awake. She made her way over to Blake's bed. The cat faunus was in a deep sleep. Ruby was standing over her, decided what to do. She could wake her and scare all the life out of her, but that could also wake the other up. She could kill her but that would arouse too much suspicion so she decided against it. Then Ruby came up with a genius idea. Ruby pulled out her scroll, laid her scythe next to Blake and took a picture of her. Then as quiet as she entered, she snuck back out before captioning it and sending it. Ruby then quickly left the window and went to her place on the roof.

Blake awoke to the sound of her scroll going off. She looked at the clock and saw that it read 1:02 A.M. _Who would be texting me now?_ Blake, who was half awake, opened the message, only to become completely awake in less than a second. The text was from Ruby and on the screen, was a picture of her from only 2 minutes ago, with the caption **I could have killed you, but I didn't. However, I know what you did, how you helped Pyrrha. If I were you, I would leave because you're next. Consider this a head start. Oh, and tell anyone, and I'll kill you were you lay.**

Blake was terrified. She just learned that Ruby knew of her involvement with her death and was preparing to kill her. Blake took her advice to heart and began packing whatever she could. She knew that if he stayed she would be killed. She left a note to her fellow team mates and left just 30 minutes after receiving the text. Blake decided that the only place to go was back to Menagerie to live with her family. She knew that she would be protected there. She would miss Yang and Weiss but knew that this was for the better. And with teary eyes, she left Beacon and Vale behind.

Morning came around and Yang was the first to wake up. She wanted to say good morning to Blake but instead of a sleeping Blake, all she found was a note. Yang reluctantly opened the note and was immediately sad she did. The note read: **Dear Weiss and Yang, I'm so sorry but my past has caught up with me. I would have loved to stay and have you help but if you had found out what I did, you would never forgive me. I'm sorry, Blake.**

"First Ruby now Blake, I can't afford to lose anyone else." Yang was once again crying. Weiss, who at first hated Blake for being a part of the White Fang, was also saddened by Blake leaving.

"Yang, it's okay. Blake is a big girl and will know what to do. Plus, at least we know she's alive. If that's any comfort." Weiss said, trying to calm Yang.

"Thanks Weiss. Promise me you will always be there. Promise me you'll never leave." Yang said, in between tears.

"I promise." Weiss said. And with that, they decided it was time for breakfast and headed down to the mess hall. Upon arriving, they saw team JNPR and SSSN there and told them. They tried to comfort the best they could, but they weren't too close to Blake. The only person that was as saddened by Blake leaving was Sun, who was close to Blake. Nora and Pyrrha had to get ready for the fight so they left. Everyone else left soon after to get good seats.

Ruby meanwhile was already aboard an airship. She wanted to get their early to make sure that her system was still in working order. She also wanted to be their early so there was a less chance of her being spotted by someone. As soon as the airship stopped, Ruby used her semblance to get to the nearest closet to hid in. She pulled out her scroll to check all the systems. Ruby knew that only a few people would be there so she decided to run a test.

Ruby got close to the stadium floor and tried the gate button. The gates closed as soon as she pressed the button and came back up when she pressed it again. Then, she pressed the lower force field button and found a piece of trash to throw at it. When it ricocheted off the force field, she knew it worked. Then she tried the loudspeaker. When she heard herself echo off the stadium walls, she grew happy with excitement that her plan was coming together. She then realized that without a picture, very few people would believe her. So, she quickly ran to the bathroom and into the large stall at the end with a mirror and took two pictures, one of her scar on her stomach and one of her back. It was then that she really saw it. It had completely healed but was easily noticeable. It was stretched from about right below her collarbone to the underside of her right boob. _Pyrrha will pay for this. I will make sure she felt the same pain I did._

After some editing to the photos, she was ready for the big reveal.

About an hour later, the stadium began to fill. Ruby had been in a supply closet close to one of the entrances to the stadium floor. Ruby waited for about another 30 minutes before she heard over the loudspeakers, Prof. Port and Dr. Oobleck announcing the first battle. _Show time_ she thought as she pulled the black hood over her head and transformed her weapon to the full scythe and left her hiding hole.

Meanwhile, on stage, Pyrrha and Nora stood before Sun and Neptune, ready for a good fight.

"Just because we know you, doesn't mean we are going to go easy on you!" Sun yelled at Nora and Pyrrha.

"I'm gonna break your legs!" Nora yelled back.

"Please don't, I like my smooth legs." Neptune responded.

"Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the second day of fighting at the Vytal Festival Tournament! Today for our first fight we have Pyrrha Nikos and Nora Valkyrie facing off against Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias!" Prof. Port said with enthusiasm as cheers arose from the crowd.

"Correct, this fight marks the first fight of the Double round and…" Dr. Oobleck was cut off by a scream coming from one of the tunnel under the stadium. Everyone had heard it and turned towards the place it came from. A few gunshots could be heard soon after that lead to some murmuring from the crowd. Then suddenly, someone in a military outfit was throw from tunnel and landed on the stadium floor, causing some to scream. Soon, a figure dressed in all black wielding a large, 6-foot scythe emerged from the tunnel. They were walking so calmly towards the fighters. Everyone knew what they were seeing but Prof. Port was the one that finally said it.

"Is that…The Grim Reaper?!"

 **Author's Note:**

 **Cliffhanger bitches.**

 **I did that so you must come back to read what happens next in the final chapter of Betrayal of a Rose. Also, yes, this was a long chapter. My longest yet. I didn't expect it to take this long but as I was typing it, I realized that there was a lot to add in to get where I wanted. If I could, I would go back and add some of what I had in the beginning of this chapter and add it to the end of chapter 9. But it's whatever. Also, the final chapter might be this long or maybe longer, depending on what happens.**

 **I mainly have the main points for these chapters thought out and the little things like that Cinder part or the Ironwood news part as added in at the last second for plot advancement. Basically, I think of the main point and wing it from there. And as of now, this chapter has over 5000 words, surpassing my longest chapter by 1500 words, or almost the entire length of chapter 3 (it had just over 1600 words).**

 **Well as always, thank you for continuing to support this story and follow me if you want to be notified when I post my other stories. Favorites, follows and reviews are always welcome.**

 **Finishing Writing: January 15, 2017 at 12:40 A.M.**

 **Words: 5k**

 **Pages: 9**


	11. Chapter 11: The Final Fight

**A/N:**

 **This is it. The final chapter of Betrayal of a Rose. I would like to thank all you those who followed this fanfiction. I recently hit 100 followers, thank you. I never thought that I would reach that high of a follow count. That may seem small but I thought I would only get around maybe 30 by this time. But 100, damn. 100 of you decided that my story was good enough for you to want to know when I posted another chapter. So, thanks again.**

 **I had fun writing this story. This was my first ever fanfic and the reason I started was because I was unhappy with the way some fanfics were incomplete or how I thought they went the wrong way so I decided to write my own, make it go my own way. Now, I had almost finished with this one, I already started another entitled Qrow's Little Secret and I have 3 more on the way.**

 **Anyways, I'm writing this chapter a few days before I release it because I want some time to write down what I think then go over it a bit more than my other chapters because I want the final chapter to be worth the wait, not some disappointment. So, the time in between when I start and when I finish will be the longest of any of my chapters. Let's get started for the final time.**

 **Side Note: I switch in between calling Pyrrha's weapon a javelin and a spear. They mean the same thing and as long are you picture her weapon, it really doesn't matter, does it?**

 **Began Writing: January 17, 2017 at 10:08 P.M.**

"Is that…The Grim Reaper?!" Professor Port said as all eyes were on the figure moving towards the fighters. They wore all black. Black hood which came down to her feet, black skirt, black leggings, black boots, black everything. Their face was covered by the hood so no one could see who this person is. The crowd was frozen in fear and the same could be said for most of the fighters. All of them, except Nora were frozen like a statue. But Nora was ready to strike.

Suddenly, she shot like a cannon towards the figure, raising her hammer and moving it down with a strong force as she got near. The figure just turned her head before raising her scythe to block it. BAM! Nora's hammer collided with the curved flat part of the scythe before the figure pushed her away with such a force that she fell back towards Pyrrha, landing on her back.

"Nora!" Pyrrha called out. Nora rose to her feet quickly, put she was holder her arm.

The figure turned to face forward before reaching into her pocket. She pulled out a scroll and it turned on. The figure looked at the scroll before beginning to tap the screen.

Suddenly, all the gates to the arena closed and the force field stretched out towards the floor. Next all the TV soon had an image of a skull holding a scythe on them, blocked them from being changed. Then, the figure pressed on more button and the loudspeakers let out a tone associated with someone tuning them. The figure then pulled the scroll close to her face before speaking.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" the voice was loud and forceful. "You need not fear because I am to kill only one person." The crowd began to look around for that one person. The voice let out a small little chuckle before speaking again. "The person I seek isn't in the stands. The person I seek stands before you. The one I seek is a fellow student who has done some… irreversible things in the past. And they need to pay for what they have done." The voice suddenly changed to a more serious tone. The crowd began to murmur amongst themselves. In the crowd, Yang and Weiss sat next to Ren and Jaune, all four of them seemed worried. The Grim Reaper just said that one of their friends is about to die. They began to think about what maybe they had done in the past to upset this person, what wrongs they committed.

"And that person isn't you, Sun Wukong." The person pointed with her scythe to Sun. "Or you, Neptune Vasilias." She then pointed to Neptune. "Or you, Nora Valkyrie." She then pointed to Nora. "No, the person I seek to kill is Pyrrha Nikos." The crowd seemed to be taken aback. Pyrrha Nikos had done something to be wanted by the Grim Reaper, one the most famous killers of the time. "That's right, Pyrrha Nikos. The star of Vale, the champions among champions, one of the best students at Beacon, needs to die. Today."

"What do you want with me?" Pyrrha asked, a bit nervous but she had her game face on, ready to battle.

"Why, isn't obvious? I want you dead. I want your head on the end of my scythe you little bitch. You tried killed me once, but I am not letting you kill me twice"

Pyrrha's face changed a bit but she still held her battle stance. "I don't know what you are talking about." She said, demandingly.

"Pyrrha, don't you recognize me? Oh, that's right, you can't see my face. Here," The figure slowly lowered the scroll and took off her hood, revealing a pair of silver eyes and long black hair with red frosted tips "does that help?"

The crowd went silent as everyone's jaws hit the floor. Pyrrha completely gave up on her battle stance as her hands covered her mouth, both in realization and fear. It was a voice from the crowd that broke the silence.

"RUBY!" Yang called out, tears beginning to form.

She brought the scroll back up to her mouth. "Thanks sis." Ruby called out to Yang. "That's right motherfucker. It's me, Ruby Rose. I'm the feared Grim Reaper. I'm the one who killed all those bandits. I'm the bitch you tried to kill in the Emerald Forest all those weeks ago, I'm the feared Grim Reaper. What's lie to you spread told everyone, including Ozpin? That I was killed by Beowulfs? Dragged off? Eaten? I guess that sounds pretty convincing. I Beacon student, two years under everyone else, killed by Grimm. She wasn't ready for the real world, the real training. She should have stayed at Signal until she was 17. Pretty convincing stuff there. I would have believed it." Ruby spoke with anger but also with a bit of joy, watching Pyrrha's world crumble around her. Her reputation, her place among the best, all was fading ever so quickly.

Pyrrha looked over to Nora, who just stared at her with fear in her eyes. She looked over at Sun and Neptune who just stared back, anger in their eyes. She looked towards Jaune, who looked back in disbelief.

"What's wrong Pyrrha? Is your world fading around you? Now you know how I felt, as I lay in that bush, bleeding out from the wound you gave from that weapon you're holding. You know the pain of feeling a cold, shard object rip through your chest cavity, splitting blood lines and tearing through organs. You now know what it feels like. You know understand the pain I went through as I thought I was going to die. Never saying goodbye to my friends, my family. Knowing that my last image would be of your face, looking down at me in disgust, like I was one of them, one of those Grimm. You said you were sorry, but I knew that you didn't mean it. Was that supposed to be some comfort? Some comfort in my final minutes? Knowing that one of my friends quite literally stabbed me in the back? Leaving me with this?!"

Ruby pulled off her cloak to reveal a large scar in her. The scar could be more well seen in her back so, using her scroll, moved one the cameras to zoom in on her back and displaying that image on every TV screen in the stadium.

"Look at it, Pyrrha! Look at what you did! This will forever live with me, a reminder that you can't trust anyone, not even your best friends!" Ruby reached down to grad her cloak when she heard an explosion coming from the crowd. She looked over to see Yang the angriest she had ever seen her. Ruby quickly grabbed her weapon and fired a shot right towards Yang. If the force field wasn't in place, it would have nailed Yang right in between the eyes. Yang jumped back from the bullet hitter the force field and stumbled back.

"Yang, I know you want to be the protective older sister but you have to understand. This is my fight." Ruby turned back to Pyrrha who seemed to be ready to fight Ruby. She was a bit surprised by this. "Pyrrha, do you not regret what you did to me?" Pyrrha said something but Ruby couldn't hear it. "Here, speak into this. Let the whole world know what you think" Ruby tossed her the scroll, which landed at her feet. Pyrrha picked it up before speaking into it. "No. I do not regret what I did. I believe what I did was justified. You, all you did was stop a criminal to get into this school. I worked by ass off for years to get into this school. While you just strolled in one day, a little pet of the professor. Your fighting skill was sub-par at best and your people skills were poor to say the least. You don't deserve to be in this school. I'm even amazed they let you in Signal you short fuck!" Pyrrha tossed the scroll back to Ruby, who had a look of determination.

"Good, good. Let it all out. Let all your pent-up emotions out because this was your last chance to do so. Pyrrha, there was a time that I looked up to you. But after what you did to me, I don't think I'll ever see you as a human being ever again. Look around you! All the people that once thought of you as friends are wishing that they never met you. Even your love interest, Jaune. He wishes that you didn't exist." Ruby looked over Jaune who now had a face of confusion and realization. "That's right Jaune. Pyrrha loved you. She loved you with all of her heart. But in a few minutes, her heart will be laying on the floor because I will rip it out of you."

"Ruby, shut the fuck up!" Pyrrha called out to her.

"No! This is what I felt. One of my last images I have before I "died" was an image of all my friends and my sister, fighting those Grimm. They were so close yet so far." Ruby looked at Yang who was cooling off, poorly. "That's right sis. Remember when Pyrrha ran down that hill towards you, a large wound on her arm? That is where she stabbed me and hid me in that bush. I was so close to you, yet, so far at the same time." Ruby turned back to Pyrrha. "Pyrrha, your time is up. It's time to die."

Ruby turned to the other, still on the battlefield. "The rest of you, you can stay and fight with Pyrrha. I would consider you a traitor and I believe the rest of the world would too. Or you can just walk away. You don't have to stay and watch if you don't want to." Ruby turned to face the crowd. "Same goes for you. The doors to the outside are open. If you don't want to see a fight to the death, you can leave. But know, if you stay to watch, you kill see someone die and will see some gruesome shit." Ruby turned back to her friends. "So, what will it be? Stay and fight and die, or leave and live?"

Sun turned to Neptune and said "Let's go." With a simple nod from Neptune and a disgusted look from both of them towards Pyrrha, they turned and walked off the stadium.

Ruby turned to Nora, who was still sitting where she fell back from Ruby blocking her attack. "Nora, what will it be?" Ruby asked.

Nora, with a stern face, turned towards to Pyrrha. "I hope you die a slow, painful death." Was all that Nora said, directed towards her once best friend Pyrrha, before turning towards Ruby and saying, "Let her suffer." Nora then ran to catch up with Sun and Neptune.

Ruby turned towards to Pyrrha. "With pleasure," Ruby said with an evil smile streaking across her face. Pyrrha, who was taken aback by Nora's comment, was now facing Ruby, a tight grip on her javelin and spear.

"I just realized something," Ruby said. "This is now a mercy killing. I could leave right now and I would still watch you suffer. Everyone knows what you did. Even if you managed to kill me, you still would never lead a normal life ever again. I have come to accept that but I don't believe you ever would. Pyrrha Nikos, the star student that fell from the heaven when she killed her friend in cold blood because why? She was jealous that a better looking, hotter, younger girl took her place? Is that why?"

Pyrrha suddenly lunged at Ruby, a move Ruby knew was coming. She quickly darted out of the way before firing off two shots at where Pyrrha landed. Pyrrha avoided the two shots but was caught off guard by Ruby swinging her scythe, which caught Pyrrha in the shoulder. Her aura had protected her from any real damage but it still hurt like hell.

The fight had begun and neither side was ready to die. Pyrrha threw her javelin at Ruby, to which Ruby responded with by shooting it. The bullet hit the javelin and ricocheted off. Pyrrha's javelin was deflected and landed close to Ruby but Pyrrha quickly used her semblance to pull her weapon back.

Ruby knew of her polarity semblance so one of her main goals was to keep Pyrrha from touching her weapon. Because while the blade was no longer steel, the rest of it was. So, Ruby was going to keep her distance from Pyrrha in regards to her weapon but she did need to get close to deal damage, but for right now, it was better for her to stay away.

Ruby once again started firing off rounds, aiming at Pyrrha. She got out of the way of most but one did end up hitting her in the arm, causing her to take a step back and kneel. Pyrrha took this chance to return fire. Ruby expertly dodged all the shots and decided that maybe now would be a good time to take a swing at Pyrrha, but Pyrrha had other ideas in mind.

Pyrrha threw her shield like a frisbee, something Ruby had forgotten about and was caught completely off-guard. She was hit directly in the stomach, causing her to fly back. Pyrrha then leaped into the air, her javelin out, ready to stab Ruby on the ground. Ruby rolled and just barely avoided the weapon hitting her but now she had to protection. She had lost her grip on her weapon when the sword hit her and it was now lying about 20 feet away from her.

Ruby glanced over at it and Pyrrha noticed it to. Now she was determined to not let Ruby get a hold of her Crescent Rose. Unfortunately, Pyrrha had forgotten about Ruby's semblance being speed. Ruby used her semblance to get around Pyrrha, pick up her weapon, and fire off two more rounds before her weapon began clicking, indicating it was out of ammo. Pyrrha was not prepared for this and the two shots hit their mark perfectly. One of them hit Pyrrha square in the back and the other hit her javelin. The shot sent her flying forward, landing face down. The bullet left a nice mark but didn't break the surface because of her aura. Pyrrha now had about 60% of her aura left. A few more well placed shots and her aura wouldn't be able to stop them.

Ruby quickly reloaded her weapon before deciding now would be a good time to get close. With her aura down, her semblance would also be down meaning the pull of the polarity would be weaker. Ruby charged at Pyrrha, who was still not on solid ground after being hit, and swung her scythe at her. Pyrrha heard her coming but decided to play injured until she got close. It worked. Right as Ruby was about to hit Pyrrha, she turned over and stabbed Ruby in the shoulder, a move Ruby never saw coming. Her aura tried to stop as much as it could but the sword still penetrated her shoulder and left a nice stab wound. It didn't go deep enough to hit anything major but it still went almost an inch deep.

Ruby was clearly jolted by the stabbing and her form went out the window. She completely missed her target and flopped over near Pyrrha but was quickly back on her feet. Pyrrha stood up and the two stared at each other before Pyrrha charged at her, shield out. Ruby moved out the way but not before once again shooting at her javelin. Pyrrha thought she was just lucky that her weapon was there but what she didn't understand was why Ruby was hitting her weapon. Ruby had been hitting the same spot because she knew over time, that area would weaken to the point where one good smack on that region would split the weapon in two. Ruby had calculated that it would take about 7 shots to weaken the metal enough to weaken it enough split it. So far, Ruby had shot it 3 times and she could see a weakened spot in the metal.

Pyrrha once again used her shield like a frisbee but Ruby had prepared this time, smacking it away like a baseball using her scythe. What Ruby wasn't prepared for was the javelin being thrown. With her weapon down, all she could to was try to avoid it, but it no avail. As she ducked, the javelin scrapped across her back, leaving a nice long scratch. Ruby collapsed into a roll and tried to get a shot off but was interrupted by two boots being planted on her shoulders and pushing away with a force strong enough to send her flying away. Pyrrha had just hit her with a one-two-three hit combo and now Ruby was on the defensive. Ruby fired off one round as Pyrrha started pulling her weapons back to hit her javelin but her weapon was pulled from her hands. When Pyrrha jumped on Ruby and pushed away she just briefly contacted her scythe and now could control it using her semblance.

As her weapon flew away from her and landed in the ground sticking up, Ruby began to realize that she had underestimated Pyrrha. While Ruby had time to get better, so did Pyrrha and it showed. Ruby was being to fear that she would lose this battle and that she would die. While no matter what happened Pyrrha would probably be killed, she wanted to be the one that killed her. But here she stood, weaponless and it the middle of a flat battle field with no cover. Both girls had about 50% aura left but Pyrrha seemed to be handling that better. Ruby had to quick fast to put Pyrrha back on the defensive.

Pyrrha, on the other hand, was struggling. Ruby was a tougher fight than she thought. And while she was ahead now, she didn't have a plan to keep it that way. Pyrrha knew if that Ruby was to attack her, she wouldn't be able to defend herself for that long before giving it. Pyrrha tried to think of something when she saw the cuts on Ruby's body. She realized that if she was to deal a bit more damage to those areas, Ruby would have to use all her aura to just keep her alive and Pyrrha would be able to finish her off easily. Pyrrha decided that the frisbee shield technique had worked well the last two times she did it and if she accompanied it with something else, her plans might just work.

Ruby saw Pyrrha about to throw her shield and then an idea hit her. If she could use the shield like a jump pad, Pyrrha would be completely caught off guard and Ruby could really do a number to her. So, when Pyrrha released the shield, Ruby used her semblance to gain some ground. Then she disabled her semblance, went feet first and landed on the shield briefly before jumping off it into the air.

Pyrrha, who was about to throw her javelin at the spot where she believed Ruby would land at after avoiding the shield, was unaware that Ruby was about to land on her like she did to her a few moments ago. Pyrrha was dumbfounded when Ruby was nowhere to be seen but that feeling was soon overcome by the sudden weight of a human being on her shoulders before they leapt off and pushed Pyrrha to the ground.

Ruby used the new momentum to lung towards her weapon. Ruby grabbed the handle of the weapon, sued it like a pivot point and pointed the barrel towards Pyrrha who was lying on the ground. Ruby took a chance to weaken her weapon and fired three more rounds into it before Pyrrha rolled away. Now the weapon was on the verge of breaking and Pyrrha could feel it. She realized how weak her weapon was and decided that throwing it would be a stupid decision, so she converted it into its rifle form and fired back. Ruby was hit by one of those shots in the right leg, causing her to gasp in pain. She looked up to see Pyrrha darting towards her and full speed. Ruby quickly pulled her scythe out of the ground and rolled away.

Ruby tried to stand but the pain in her leg was a bit too much. Pyrrha saw this and realized how weak she really was. She took this as a clue that now if she landed a good enough spear throw that Ruby's aura couldn't protect her enough and that it might just kill her. But she didn't want to take the chance that Ruby's weapon would get in the way so she used her semblance to pull Ruby's weapon away. Ruby began to feel a strong pull of her weapon being pulled away and an idea struck her. If she was to keep a grasp on the weapon, she could catch Pyrrha completely off-guard. So, as her weapon began to be pulled from her grasp, she used whatever strength she could to push herself forward while maintaining a grip on the scythe.

Pyrrha had closed her eyes to focus more on the strength of pulling the weapon away, but when she felt the weapon almost double in weight she opened her eyes. But it was too late to act. By the time she saw what was going on, Ruby had planted her feet right above Pyrrha's breasts and push off with a tremendous force. She used the backwards momentum to backflip away from Pyrrha but not before sending one more shot at her spear, landing perfectly. Ruby heard the faintest of sounds that sounded like metal beginning to crack and at that point Ruby knew that all she needed was to hit the weapon to split it in half.

The push off of Pyrrha had cracked Pyrrha's collarbone. Only her remaining aura protected it from breaking, but it still hurt extremely bad. Pyrrha looked up to see Ruby land sloppily, collapsing from the pain of the bullet wound. Pyrrha was now entering a half panic half frantic mode. She knew that she didn't have that much strength in her to survive more of those types of attack so she was getting desperate. Pyrrha decided that the whole risk over reward idea was gone as all her ideas were riskier than the reward was, the main one being whether to throw her weapon or not, even though it was weak.

With both girls running low on aura, they were both on the verge of not being able to heal from a large attack. Pyrrha knew this a bit better than Ruby and concluded that if she were to somehow get Ruby distracted and land a javelin throw on her, she might not be able to recover. So, Pyrrha once again used her shield like a frisbee just to distract Ruby enough. It worked and Ruby had to quickly move out of the way but she didn't have enough time to dodge the incoming spear.

The impact made a sickening sound of flesh tearing and bones cracking as the spear entered her other shoulder. Pyrrha had landed the shot and Ruby was feeling it. Ruby looked over to see a spear sticking out of her left shoulder, implanted about an inch and a half deep. Ruby dropped her weapon and looked at Pyrrha, who had a face of determination on, glad she had landed the shot. But Ruby wasn't going to have it end like this. Ruby had other plans.

Ruby slowly rose to her feet, the spear sticking out the whole time. Ruby then grabbed ahold of the spear, tightly gripping it. Then everyone watched as Ruby pulled the spear out of her body, screaming the whole time. Once it was out, Ruby took a good look at it, then at Pyrrha, who looked at her in fear, then back at the spear. She then grabbed either end of the spear and, with all the strength she could muster, broke Pyrrha's weapon over her knee. Everyone was stunned by this. This girl, who shouldn't even be able to stand up, just broke a weapon in half with her bare hands.

Ruby then looked at Pyrrha, who was now standing, and had already decided her fate. Ruby then somehow used her semblance for a second, breaking it off to throw the back end of the spear at Pyrrha, the went back into her tornado of speed and death. Pyrrha used all her strength to block the back half of her weapon but couldn't stop what happened next.

Pyrrha suddenly felt something cold hit her. A screaming pain coming from her back. She looked down and what she saw scared her beyond anything she had ever seen or encountered. Sticking out of her was a blade, but not just any blade. It was the tip of a weapon, a familiar weapon, her weapon. Ruby had used her semblance to get behind her and stab her, with the same weapon, in the same spot. Pyrrha looked at the tip of the spear sticking out of her in complete fear and pain. Then Ruby appeared from behind her.

"Aww, see. Now we match. I guess karma works in magical ways." Ruby said, an evil grin stretching across her face. Ruby began walking over to wear the other half of the weapon had landed after Pyrrha blocked it.

"Ru…Ru…. Rub…Rub…" Pyrrha tried to form words but the pain of the stab and the blood beginning to trickle out of her mouth was getting in the way.

"Come on, out with it. These might be your final words so don't let them be random sounds." Ruby picked up the other half and began to walk back.

"Rub…Ruby. Please don't do this. Don't. Please." Pyrrha choked out finally.

"Aww, the pleads for mercy. I knew this was coming. All I must say to that is where was the mercy when you killed me? Huh? Where was the mercy when you saw, the life escape my eyes, as I lay there, bleeding out? HUH?! WHERE WAS THE MERCY THEN?!" Ruby was screaming at this point. The whole stadium could hear her. She began to twirl the half in her hands before she started chuckling. "Oh, that's right, there was none. I saw the look of righteousness in you, the feeling of "I did a good thing today" in you tone. To you, I was a mistake. I was a problem. And you were the solution." Ruby leaned in close. "You and Blake, that is." Pyrrha looked at Ruby with a face of realization and fear. Ruby smiled. "That's right. I know. I know about all of it. I know of your little plan with her, what role she played, how she manipulated my sister. Don't worry, she's next." Ruby back away from Pyrrha and turned from her.

"Ruby…please don't kill her. She felt bad for what she did. I didn't, okay?" Pyrrha was pleading with Ruby at this point, tears streaming down her face, mixing with the blood that came from her mouth.

"I know you didn't. I know she did. But don't worry, her death won't be as painful as yours. It will be quick. I bullet to the head or a snap of the neck. Quick and painless." Ruby had a crazed look in her eyes. Pyrrha saw this and knew that there was no way out of this, she would die today.

"Fine. You win. Kill me." Pyrrha lowered her head, both in shame and defeat.

"With pleasure." Ruby pulled out her scroll and began speaking into it again, her voice coming over the loud speakers. "But you, Pyrrha Nikos, were a mistake. You should have never been allowed to come here. Ozpin made a mistake. And I'm here to fix that mistake." Pyrrha looked up at Ruby, recognizing this as the final words she spoke to Ruby before leaving her in the bush. Ruby lowered the scroll and smiled at Pyrrha, "Karma." That was the last word Pyrrha heard before Ruby launched the other half of her weapon at her, hitting her right in the neck.

Pyrrha choked out more and more blood as her air and blood supply began to run out from her neck. The life was slipping faster and faster from her grasp. Ruby calmly wake over to Pyrrha, who was choking on her own blood, Ruby looked her square in the face before yanking the sword from her neck. Pyrrha gave one last look of fear before dropping dead in front of Ruby. Ruby just starred at Pyrrha, blood continuing to spill from her body and she lay, lifeless and cold, as she still held on to the weapon, caked in her blood before dropping it in front of her.

Ruby then walked over to where she had dropped her scythe and picked it up. She then looked around at the crowd. There were either starring in horror or covering their eyes. Ruby then calmly reached into her pocket and grabbed her scroll and began speaking into it again.

"I'm sorry you had to see this," her voice over the loudspeakers said, "but sometimes, justice is bloody and violent. I'm sorry to my friends, my teammates, to everyone who had to see this, and I'm especially sorry to my sis." And with that, Ruby pressed two buttons on her scroll. One which raised the gates to the arena, where military guards where already standing, waiting to arrest her and the other, which eliminated the force field completely. As the military rushed the field, Ruby used all her strength for her semblance to fly straight up and over the arena and away from the stadium.

Yang suddenly stood up, causing Weiss to snap out of the trance she was in. Yang began to turn from Weiss, but not before Weiss grabbed her arm.

"Yang? Where are you going?" Weiss asked

"To the dorm, Ruby might be there." Yang said, pulling away from Weiss' grip. "I need to see my sister again."

"Then I'm coming with you. She was my first real friend and I would never forgive myself if I never saw her again."

Yang nodded and the two headed towards the dorms.

Meanwhile, Ruby sat on Blake's bed in the dark dorm room, picking the glass out of her after she came in through the window, smashing it. After finishing with that, she began to bandages up her shoulders. She knew where all the bandages were and had begun self-injury treatment. The one on her back would require more than what as available in the dorm so she planned on stealing for medicine from the local hospital.

She was almost done when the sounds of people running came from down the hall. Ruby quickly grabbed her scythe and aimed it at the door, expecting military or security to come smashing through the door. And the footsteps got louder, she focused on the area of the door where a head would appear once the door came down.

Suddenly, the door opened with a fury, but instead of seeing a solider in a helmet through her scope, she saw a pair of lilac eyes and long golden hair staring back at her.

"Yang!" Ruby dropped her weapon as Yang ran up to her and gave her the biggest hug she had ever received.

"Oh, my god! I can't believe you're alive. I was so worried!" Yang cried out through the tears. The embrace seemed like it would never end.

Ruby looked up and saw another person in the room. She had blue eyes and long white hair and was wearing her signature white combat skirt.

"Weiss!" Ruby called out and beckoned her to join in on the hug, something she wouldn't normally, but made an exception this time, quickly joining in and beginning to cry too. "Weiss, I missed you so much."

"Shut up and hold me you dolt." Weiss said through her tears.

Ruby eventually broke the hug when the pain from her shoulders came back.

"Okay, ow, you're beginning to hurt me." Ruby pushed the two of them off.

"Sorry." Yang said, wiping the tears away. "I just missed you so much."

"We all did, including Blake, who ran away yesterday." Weiss said. Ruby twitched upon hearing her name.

Yang noticed this. "Ruby, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Ruby said, trying to change the subject.

"No, something is bugging you." Yang seemed more demanding now.

"It's something that you two don't need to worry about." Ruby tried to shake the thought of Blake out of her head.

"What do you mean? What happened with you and Blake?" Yang asked.

Ruby sighed. "I guess you have a right to know." Ruby inhaled deeply before going on. "Blake helped Pyrrha."

"What?" The two girls looked at her in shock.

"The day I was attacked, Blake purposely went with Yang to distract her from me. She told you everything was alright and that you were just paranoid. So, yesterday night, I sent here this and told her never to come back." Ruby showed the two girls the image and caption. Both girls just looked on in shock and awe before Ruby saw Yang's eyes turn red.

"That BITCH!" Yang looked like she was going to kill Blake herself. Ruby quickly grabbed Yang by the arm and pulled her down, causing her to lose her balance and fall. Yang looked up at her little sister, who looked down at her in a mix of disappointment and anger.

"Yang, I know how much you care for me, but she is my fight. Just like Pyrrha was. I need to fight this battle on my own." Ruby said.

"So, she did try to kill you…" Ruby looked at Weiss, who was looking at her feet. "She really didn't like you and tried to kill you because of it?"

Ruby sighed. "Apparently, she believed that Ozpin had made a mistake allowing me into the school. She thought that my fight with Torchwich wasn't near enough to prove myself and that I was just a teacher's pet."

"Your scar? Can I see it again?" Weiss asked. Yang nodded as well. Ruby turned around and dropped her cape again. Her whole back was exposed. She wore a type of shirt that only covered the front, something it looked like she made just for this occasion. It really looked like a regular shirt that had been cut in the back. Weiss reached out to touch it and when she did, Ruby pulled back in surprise.

"Sorry, your fingers are just cold and I haven't felt the feeling of another pair of hands in a long time." Ruby said with a small smile. Weiss smiled back and when she touched the scar again, Ruby didn't move.

"Oh, my god. She really did a number on you. I surprised she didn't kill you. You honestly should be dead." Weiss said, looking at her in amazement.

"Well, let's just say that I was given a second chance by someone I love." Ruby said as a single tear form in her eye.

"Well then," Yang said, "I guess it's time to go home."

"No." Ruby said.

"What? What do you mean no?" Yang asked, puzzled.

"Yang, I just told everyone across Remnant that the Grim Reaper is Ruby Rose. They are going to find out where I was born, where I came from, who my family is, where they came from, why I'm like this. I could never lead a normal life ever again." Ruby said.

"Then we'll just change your name and your appearance. No one will ever know." Yang said, trying to reason.

"Yang, it won't be that simple. Everyone, you, me, dad, Qrow, we will all have to change our name, our appearance, and even move from Patch to somewhere more secluded. I'm sorry Yang, but I can't go home, not ever." Ruby said, more tears forming in her eyes.

The sound of yelling and running coming from down the hall made them all glance up.

"Just down here, the dorm room is right around the corner." A muffled male voice could be heard,

Weiss and Yang looked back and Ruby as grabbing some clothes and extra bandages.

"Where are you going?" Weiss asked.

"Those men most likely have a shot-on-sight order for me. So, I think it would be best if I wasn't here when they bust through the door." Ruby grabbed her weapon and began to climb out the window.

"No! I won't let you leave. Not again. I'm never letting you out of my sight again!" Yang's eyes turned red again, both from anger and tears forming in her eyes.

"Yang, I'm sorry. But this is for the better. If I'm still here and you're still here when they get here, you're going to see some things that aren't going to be pretty." Ruby was now on the window sill, preparing to jump. A sudden force of someone trying to pull her back caused her to begin to lose her balance. Ruby pulled a hidden knife she had hidden in her boot and stabbed the arm that was holding her.

Yang jumped back in pain as the knife was drilled into her arm. Weiss jumped back but was unsure about what to do, help Yang or confront Ruby. She decided to help Yang.

The footsteps were getting louder now and Ruby knew that if she didn't leave now, someone would die.

Ruby looked at Weiss. "Tell them I attacked you both. Tell them that I was crazy, that I overpowered you. That knife is going to be more than enough proof. But DON'T tell them anything about what you heard from me." Ruby looked at Yang, who just looked back at her sister in fear and shock. "I'm sorry…" Ruby croaked out, tears forming in her eyes. Ruby then turned from them both. Ruby crouched down and fired off a round right as the door swung open and five military officers with guns drawn came barging in. They looked at the two girls on the floor, one with a knife sticking out of her arm and the other trying to comfort her.

"What happened?! Where is she?!" The man began shouting at them.

"She…she…" Yang tried to speak but was too caught up in her emotions.

"She attacked us. We tried to get her to stop but she was crazy. She even stabbed her own sister. I'm afraid she lost her mind." Weiss looked down as more tears came.

"God dammit. Find her and get these girls some medical personal, stat!" The man began to yell at his men.

Ruby had used the momentum of the shot to propel her into the air before using her semblance to fly away from the school. She landed near Forever Fall and began to run from there. As she reached the tree line near the edge of the school, she took one final look at the school. She looked back on all the memoires she shared at the school. All the fun times and happy times. All the team bonding and all the friend making. She glanced towards the dorms, where Yang lay. She began to cry for her sister. She couldn't image what she was feeling. She was trying to help and her little sister stabbed her. She then turned away from the school and ran into the forest, never to be seen again.

Meanwhile back at the RWBY dorm, Weiss and Yang sat on their beds, thinking. Yang was being treated for her stab wound, which was hadn't hit anything major. Weiss sat on her bed, looking out the window towards Forever Fall when something caught her eye. Something small was drifting in the wind. Yang saw it to and they both watched it as it drifted left, then right, then left again. It was small and red and it seemed to come from nowhere. It came ever close to them before they realized what it was.

A rose pedal. A single red rose pedal was drifting in the breeze. The two watched it the whole time as it came ever closer to the window. Then, as softly as it could, it landed on the window sill and stayed put. It glistened in the moonlight as it lay on the window sill. Weiss and Yang looked at each other as the agreed, it was a tribute to the teammate, the friend, the sister they lost that day. It sat there until Yang picked it up and put it in her front pocket, a silent reminder that Ruby was always with her, no matter where she went.

 **A/N:**

 **The End.**

 **I really hoped you liked this last installment of Betrayal of a Rose. It was a blast to write and really nice to read what you guys liked about it. I tried to make it the best I could, that's why I took me about a week to write this. My main area of concern was the fight. I'm not that great at fight scenes but I really tried on this one to make it the best. And I do believe it turned out well. I'm really sorry if it didn't meet what you wanted, but I'm more of the dark, emotional writer. Also, this smashed my record for longest chapter at over 7300 words.**

 **But anyways, thank you for making this worthwhile to write. I had a blast. Once this chapter is posted, which will be later in the day, I will click a little button that says "Complete" which means that if you follow it after this chapter, then you will have a story that will never be undated again in your followed stories. Instead, add it to your favorites and re-read it. My next story, besides Qrow's Little Secret, will either be another dark fanfic about Ruby being injured, one of her being captured and one about death, lots of death. I haven't decided yet.**

 **But thank you again and have a good day.**

 **Finished Writing: January 23, 2017 at 12:44 A.M.**

 **Words: 7.3k**

 **Pages: 12**


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